Rather than being upfront about the lack of an ability to reverse a xarelto bleedout, defendants such as Jannsen Pharmaceuticals, Bayer, and Johnson & Johnson chose instead to hide this very important fact in the overdose section of the label. The unsuspecting Xarelto user is then subject to the blood thinner side effects that lead to life-threatening complications which lead to death.

The defendants, who are currently facing lawsuits in the Eastern District of Louisiana and Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, are also alleged to have duped medical personnel including ER doctors and surgeons, as well as hematology and cardiac specialists. There are over fourteen thousand (14,000) lawsuits in the federal courts alone, and over one thousand (1,000) cases in the Philadelphia Court alone. One of the key differences between whether to file in the federal courts in Louisiana versus the Philadelphia Court of Common Please is the issue of ischemic strokes. This is a new condition in addition to the uncontrolled bleeding found in those injured from xarelto. An ischemic stroke is the result of a blood clot that clogs an artery leading to the brain. Such blood clots are often associated with the buildup of plaque in the arteries, a condition we often refer to as atherosclerosis. Ischemic strokes can be caused by clots in the neck (carotid artery) and other major arteries. While the Eastern District of Louisanca is not accepting xarelto stroke lawsuits, the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas is accepting claims of stroke caused by rivaroxaban.

Another key difference is that the Philadelphia court is allowing efficacy claims on blood clot injuries that xarelto should have prevented. The argument is that due to xarelto’s one time per day dosing, the patient does not have the anticoagulant protection needed to get them through to the next dose, leaving them extremely vulnerable to xarelto bleedouts. The 1x per day design was simply a marketing ploy designed to help Jannsen, Bayer, and Johnson & Johnson get an advantage over the makers of Paradaxa and Eliquis, which need to be taken multiple times on a daily basis.

If you have a family member killed by xarelto, Michael Baseluos can help. A xarelto lawsuit can help get you or a family member injured by xarelto the compensation you deserve. To date, there have been over one hundred fifty (150) deaths from xarelto. With over $1 Billion in sales and well over a million prescriptions, Xarelto is a ticking time bomb for many patients who receive the drug to treat complications that might arise from atrial fibrillation. The FDA has received well over 2,000 complaints concerning side effects of taking xarelto, reflecting uncontrolled bleeding, hemorrhaging and death. Other side effects include gastrointestinal bleeding, intracranial hemorrhage, stroke, and death. Baseluos Law Firm (BLF) is assisting citizens nationwide in obtaining sizeable xarelto lawsuit settlement amounts.

Recently Drs. Hwang and Hun concluded studies of senior citizens who switched from traditional warfarin to the blood thinner rivaroxaban (pharmaceutical name for Xarelto). The researchers discovered the patients were at increased risk of vitreous hemorrhage or eye bleeds. In June 2015, a leading medical journal, JAMA Ophthalmology published their research detailing xarelto side effects of eye bleed injuries shortly after transitioning from Warfarin to Xarelto.

Scientists and professors from John Hopkins published a study in the April 2015 issue of BMJ (originally known as the British Medical Journal) in which they investigated the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding associated with anticoagulants. The researchers concluded that there could be a “more than twofold higher risk of bleeding with rivaroxaban compared with warfarin.”

Bayer AG and Janssen Pharmaceuticals (a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson) marketed Xarelto as a one time daily (1x per day) medication. The idea of a once daily dosage was done to appeal to consumers and lure them away from the competitor manufacturers of Pradaxa and Eliquis. Yet studies have confirmed that the intensity of Xarelto’s anticoagulant properties largely decreases over the course of the day, leaving Xarelto users in serious danger of internal bleeding , uncontrolled bleeding , and hemorrhages . The defendant manufacturers absolutely never warned the prescribing doctors over the drop in blood thinner effectiveness, forming a large basis of “efficacy claims” in the federal courts.

Another largely unsound and deceptive business practice of the manufacturer defendants was to market Xarelto as being better than Warfarin due to their claims that a routine blood test was unnecessary for Xarelto users as compared to warfarin users. These claims have now undergone major scrutiny as it has been demonstrated that xarelto bleedout incidents would have been seriously diminished had blood monitoring taken place. In fact, Xarelto manufacturers had actually developed a blood testing device to use in conjunction with Xarelto but chose not to actively push that device for fear it would discredit their prior claims of no blood monitoring and diminish profits. Downplaying or out rightly rejecting the need for blood monitoring is a major part of the case against the manufacturers for failure to warn which has led to xarelto fatalities and serious side effects .

In our prior blog entry on the learned intermediary doctrine , we discussed the key element of whether the prescribing information given to the doctor adequately allowed medical providers to weigh the risks and benefits of prescribing Xarelto. A strong argument can be made that in fact prescribers were seriously misinformed about the effectiveness of rivaroxaban and xarelto side effects.

Baseluos Law Firm is offering free consultations for anyone in the United States who has suffered a severe bleeding event, gastrointestinal bleeding, cerebral hemorrhaging, or even death from Xarelto.

In reality, if pharmaceutical manufacturers can show that they adequately informed the doctor of the risks of their drugs, then the manufacturers can shield themselves from product liability suits, even if ultimately patients do not receive any warnings. In reviewing manufacturer warnings, it is tempting to analyze the FDA Black Box Warnings and the Medication guide, both of which the FDA approves. A Black box warning appears on a prescription drug label and highlights life threatening or serious adverse effects for the consumer. Medication Guides are paper copies that accompany prescription medicines which deal with both general and specific information on harmful or threatening drug effects. However, a Xarelto lawsuit lawyer is more interested in the FDA approved prescribing information ie. Determining what manufacturers provided to the prescribing doctors.

Xarelto / Rivaroxaban belongs to a class of drugs known as NOACs – Non Vitamin K Dependent Anticoagulants. Other drugs in this class include Pradaxa and Eliquis. These specific NOACs were all evaluated against warfarin, a traditional anticoagulant, and underwent clinical trials and obtained FDA approval. Moreover, Xarelto defendants like Bayer AG and Janssen Pharmaceuticals touted NOACs and being more effective and safer than Warfarin, employing direct to consumer advertising (DTC). Interestingly, only the USA and New Zealand permit DTC advertising of prescription drugs.

To successfully succeed on a pharmaceutical liability suit, it is critical that a xarelto attorney prove the prescribing physician did not have enough information as to the risks and benefits of xarelto upon drafting the prescription. As Xarelto litigation develops, the key component for a xarelto law firm is to prove the doctor would never have prescribed rivaroxaban (the official medical term for xarelto) had they had a complete picture of the risks of xarelto bleeding problems. A xarelto lawsuit based on inadequate or misinformation communicated to physicians focuses on three (3) major areas. The first area is whether the manufacturer sufficient communicated risks of xarelto as a blood thinner or whether doctors commonly knew the risks of rivararoxaban. The second area is whether rivaroxaban manufacturers accurately communicated the benefits of the blood thinner without exaggeration. The final area is whether the manufacturer in any way misled the prescribing doctor about the risks or benefits of xarelto.

Xarelto in particular was tested against Warfarin to obtain FDA approval, and marketed as being more effective and safer than Warfarin. Despite no antidote for uncontrolled bleeding caused by Xarelto (as opposed to warfarin which uncontrolled bleeding could be controlled by Vitamin K), Janssen and Bayer heavily marketed Xarelto. It should be noted that the pharmaceutical manufacturers did include a warning in the FDA approved prescribing information that a specific antidote for rivaroxaban was not available. An argument can be made that such warnings were inadequate.

However, the most damning aspects of the prescribing information were inadequate representations of the benefits and safety of Xarelto over warfarin. Specifically, scientific research now reflects xarelto is not as effective as warfarin. The manufacturers exaggerated the benefits to push greater prescriptions. Nor is xarelto safer than warfarin given the major risk of unsafe bleeding events. It should also be noted that the xarelto dosage of 1x per day leaves Xarelto users with diminished protection against coagulant protection for extended periods of time. If you are considering a lawsuit from xarelto side effects, please contact Baseluos Law Firm immediately.

The first category consists of plaintiffs who suffered a gastrointestinal or rectal bleed after taking the drug known as rivaroxaban (Xarelto) to reduce the risk of stroke or embolism (an obstruction in a blood vessel due to a clot or foreign matter that becomes stuck in the blood stream).

The second category of plaintiffs are those individuals who took the blood thinner to treat deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a blood clot formed in a vein. If the clot travels through the bloodstream, it can eventually block an artery in the lungs, leading to pulmonary embolism (PE). The most common scenario for this category are plaintiffs who underwent hip or knee replacement surgery. Those plaintiffs using xarelto to treat DVT or PE and who thereafter suffer uncontrolled bleeding from gastrointestinal or rectal internal bleeding are part of this second category.

The third category of plaintiffs involve individuals who suffered atrial fibrillation and took xarelto to minimize the risk of stroke and thereafter suffered a hemorrhage and / or brain bleeds. Atrial fibrillation is a type of arrhythmia that affects the rhythm of the heart.

The recent order signed by Judge New, Case Management Order No. 11, can be reviewed here .

Judge New has scheduled ten (10) bellwether trials over the course of 2017. It is not cost effective to take thousands of cases to trial in pharmaceutical product liability suits. Bellwether trials are intended to be test cases to determine if the defendants are liable for xarelto fatalities and serious side effects. If the cases proceed well on behalf of the plaintiffs in these trials, then defendants are likely to agree to a mass settlement for the several thousand plaintiffs injured from xarelto.

The Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas is not the only jurisdiction hearing Xarelto injury cases. Currently, a federal multidistrict litigation (MDL) on Xarelto bleedouts is being held in the Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans before the Honorable US District Judge Fallon. A multidistrict litigation (MDL) is a unique federal legal procedure that accelerates the process of handling complex pharmaceutical drug liability cases. Attorneys on both sides can exchange key documents and questions regarding a manufacturer’s negligence and whether the drug injured plaintiffs can be resolved in an organized , efficient manner. Defendants in the federal MDL include Bayer Healthcare and Janssen Pharmaceuticals. In the federal MDL, Judge Fallon has also scheduled bellwether trials in the Eastern District in 2017.

Judge New in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas is specifically allowing Xarelto Efficacy Claims, which represent blood clot injuries as a result of xarelto failing to prevent blood clots. The efficacy claims revolve around xarelto’s 1x per day dosing schedule. The argument is that the anticoagulant ability to prevent blood clots wore off before a patient could take the next dose of xarelto. The marketing ploy of a one dose per day is alleged to have been done by Bayer and Jannsen simply to gain an advantage over other rivals whose own blood thinners required multiple daily doses such as Eliquis and Pradaxa.

These types of efficacy claims are currently not being accepted by Judge Fallon in the federal MDL on Louisiana.

Michael Baseluos is a Xarelto attorney currently assisting those individuals who have been injured from xarelto.