Ever-rising number of Xarelto lawsuits filed in Philadelphia mass tort group.
Lawsuits filed against Xarelto manufacturers Bayer AG and Janssen Pharmaceuticals allege use of the drug led to severe internal bleeding, serious injuries and deaths. There are currently 430 cases filed in the mass tort group and this number is expected to rise as litigation continues. Currently, the litigation is only in the pretrial stages and the trials are not expected to start for quite some time. The lawsuits are able to be consolidated into a mass tort group because they all make similar allegations against the same defendants. These Xarelto lawsuits all similarly allege that Xarelto causes severe internal bleeding which can lead to serious injury or death in patients using the drug, that the manufacturers of Xarelto failed to adequately warn patients and doctors about the real dangers of the drug, and that the manufacturers of the drug were reckless in releasing the product to market without an antidote. Xarelto is a part of a new class of blood thinners called Xa inhibitors. Xa inhibitors work differently from the traditional blood thinners on the market because they prevent clots by blocking the agent in blood that makes it clot, thrombin. By blocking thrombin, Xarelto completely takes away the blood’s ability to clot. This is very dangerous considering the drug does not have an antidote to its anticoagulant effects. This means that if a patient suffers from an internal bleeding injury there is no way to stop the bleeding short of extreme life saving medical interventions. This is very different from the situation that patients are in if they are taking the drug Warfarin, a historically successful blood thinner. If a patient experiences an internal bleeding injury while taking Warfarin, a doctor can administer Vitamin K, the effects of Warfarin will be reversed, and the blood will clot again. Since Xarelto’s release, the FDA has issued several warnings regarding the safety of the drug and the drug has two ‘black box’ warnings attached to it. The black box warning is the most strict warning the FDA can attach to the drug short of recalling it and it usually means that there is a reasonable risk of harm associated with usage of the drug. Originally posted by Marc Goldich on DigitalJournal.com. Xarelto Lawsuits – Ball & Evans & Ball & Evans Trial Attorney – Los Angeles