Oren Fells from Georgia recently filed a Xarelto uncontrollable intracranial or brain bleeding lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The lawsuit was filed against Bayer Healthcare, Johnson & Johnson, and its Janssen subsidiary, the manufacturers of Xarelto.

Catastrophic Xarelto Brain Bleeding Allegations

Fells began taking the newer anticoagulant or blood thinner Xarelto in 2013, for the treatment of atrial fibrillation, a common heart rthym problem. Fells suffered a brain bleed in January, 2014, causing him to develop life long permanent injuries.

Many lawsuits have been filed against Xarelto’s manufacturers,  Bayer and Johnson & Johnson and the plaintiffs claim that the companies failed to warn patients and doctors about the risks associated with Xarelto and the lack of an antidote to help stop the bleeding.

What is Xarelto?

Xarelto (rivaroxoaban) was FDA approved in 2011 as an alternative for Coumadin (warfarin), which has been the gold standard anticoagulant treatment for the past 60 years. Xarelto is one of several new-generation blood thinners, which have been promoted as easier to use than warfarin. Unfortunately, several thousand Xarelto bleeding problems have been reported since the medication was used.

Xarelto Federal MDL Litigation

According to the latest federal court census, there are almost 2,500 lawsuits filed, alleging that Xarelto caused patients to develop serious bleeding injuries. The Xarelto litigation is consolidated and centralized before U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon in the Eastern District of Louisiana as part of Multidistrict litigation (MDL) since December 2014.

Lawsuits against Bayer and Johnson & Johnson are consolidated in two courts, a multidistrict litigation court in the Eastern District of Louisiana and a mass tort litigation court in Philadelphia.

As is common in pharmaceutical multi-district litigation, a small group of Xarelto injury cases are scheduled to go through case-specific discovery and be set for early test trials, these are known as “bellwether trials.”

4 Xarelto Bellwether Trials Set

Judge Fallon set a series of four bellwether trials to go before juries in the Spring of 2017. The number of Xarelto lawsuits continue to increase and be filed by individuals across the United States, alleging severe and deadly bleeding complications.

Bellwether Trials in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas

The first two trials will be held in the Eastern District of Louisiana, on February 6 and March 13, 2017. The third trial will be held in Mississippi on April 24, 2017 and the fourth trial will be held in Texas on May 30, 2017.

According to Judge Fallon’s order, the cases that will go before juries on these dates will be pulled from a pool of 40 lawsuits to be selected in January 2016. These cases will be trial ready, with case-specific discovery, including depositions of plaintiffs, prescribing doctors, treating physicians and sales representatives of the drug makers.

Pradaxa MDL Settlement

Pradaxa, the first new-generation anticoagulant to hit the market was also exposed to several thousand bleeding complication lawsuits. More than 4,000 Pradaxa injury lawsuits were filed, and Boehringer Ingleheim, the manufacturer agreed to settle the claims without any trials and paid $650 million in Pradaxa settlements, with an average of about $150,000 per claim.