A couple from Ohio filed a new Xarelto lawsuit alleging that the drug caused a life-threatening gastrointestinal bleeding and a severe case of anemia. The husband and wife are asking the pharmaceutical companies for a $150,000 compensation to repay the past, present and future medical bills they had to endure, as well as repairing damage to the injuries sustained. The woman was prescribed the blood blood thinner to treat her atrial fibrillation and reduce the risk of stroke. However, after just two months, she suffered from an intestinal bleeding. Since the anticoagulant effects of Rivaroxaban cannot be reversed, the internal haemorrhage continued for a long time leading to a severe case of anemia. The woman also developed several other chronic conditions that significantly impaired her quality of life.
The new anticoagulant drug is allegedly responsible for thousands of other deaths and injuries, due to the high risk of uncontrolled bleedings that cannot be stopped due to the lack of a proper antidote. Plaintiffs who filed a litigation accuse Bayer AG and Janssen Pharmaceuticals of releasing an unsafe and untested drug to the market. Even the clinical trials that supposedly proved the safety and effectiveness of the drug compared to its older counterpart Warfarin have been under scrutiny in the last few months. According to a Forbes article, the ROCKET-AF trial was conducted carelessly and with a distinct lack of professionalism, similarly to a “school science fair project.”
On December 2015, members of the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) decided to consolidate all the lawsuit in a Multidistrict litigation in the Eastern District of Louisiana, to speed up proceedings. Hearings have been conducted over several months to evaluate all evidence available until the panel determined that informal coordination was not practical. Honourable Judge Eldon E. Fallon has been appointed to manage this giant litigation since he’s especially well-versed in this type of case.
Article written by: Dr. Claudio Butticè, Pharm.D.
Published: 2016/06/29
