Xarelto Lawsuits Progress, As Federal Court Prepares to Move Forward with Bellwether Trial Selections, Bernstein Liebhard LLP Reports

(PRLEAP.COM) January 11, 2016 - Thousands of Xarelto lawsuits (http://www.rxinjuryhelp.com/xarelto/lawsuit/) involving the medication's alleged bleeding side effects continue to move forward in the multidistrict litigation now underway in U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana. According to an Order dated December 17th, the Court has begun the process of selecting 40 Xarelto cases for the proceeding's bellwether trial pool. The Order stipulates that plaintiffs and the defense are to select 10 cases each for the pool by January 11th, five of which are to have originated in the Eastern District of Louisiana, one from Mississippi, one from Texas and three cases from other states. Though they are not required to do so, the Order asks that the parties "endeavor" to choose at least one case from each of six injury categories identified by the Court:

Individuals who suffered a gastrointestinal bleed while using Xarelto to prevent stroke,

Individuals who suffered a brain bleed/hemorrhagic stroke while using Xarelto to prevent stroke.

Individuals who experienced rectal bleeding while using Xarelto to prevent stroke,

Individuals who suffered a gastrointestinal bleed while using Xarelto to treat pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis.

Individuals who suffered a brain bleed/hemorrhagic stroke while using Xarelto to treat pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis.

Individuals who experienced rectal bleeding while using Xarelto to treat pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis.

By January 15th, the Court will randomly select 20 additional Xarelto lawsuits. These selections will include 10 from Louisiana, two from Mississippi and one each from eight other states selected by the parties. (In Re: Xarelto Products Liability Litigation, No. 2592)

"Our Firm is representing a number of Xarelto plaintiffs in this proceeding, and we are pleased that the Court is moving forward with its bellwether trial plan. The outcome of these cases could provide valuable insight into how juries might decide similar Xarelto lawsuits," says Sandy A. Liebhard, a partner at Bernstein Liebhard LLP, a nationwide law firm representing victims of defective medical devices and drugs. The Firm continues to evaluate potential Xarelto lawsuits on behalf of individuals who may have been harmed by this blood-thinning medication.

Xarelto Bleeding Litigation
Xarelto is a new generation blood thinner that was approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in 2011. It is currently indicated for the prevention of strokes in people with atrial fibrillation; the treatment of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism; and the prevention of deep vein thrombosis in patients undergoing hip or knee replacement surgery. Xarelto's label includes a black box warning that contains information about the increased risk of blood clot formation after premature discontinuation of the medication in the absence of adequate alternative anticoagulation.

At least 2,400 Xarelto lawsuits are now pending in the Eastern District of Louisiana, where all federal cases involving its alleged bleeding side effects have been consolidated for the purposes of coordinated pretrial proceedings. Plaintiffs charge that the drug's manufacturers concealed Xarelto's serious risks, and wrongly promoted it as an improvement over warfarin, a blood thinner that has been on the market for decades. Among other things, the complaints note that internal bleeding associated with warfarin can be stopped via the administration of vitamin K. By contrast, there is currently no approved antidote to reverse Xarelto bleeding.

The Court has indicated that it will convene four bellwether trials beginning in February 2017. The first two Xarelto trials will get underway in the Eastern District of Louisiana on February 6, 2017 and March 13, 2017. The third and fourth will take place in yet-to-be determined Districts in Mississippi and Texas on April 24, 2017 and May 30, 2017.

Individuals who allegedly experienced uncontrollable Xarelto bleeding or other complications that could be related to its use may be eligible to join the growing litigation involving the blood thinner. Learn more about filing a Xarelto lawsuit by visiting Bernstein Liebhard LLP's website, or call 800-511-5092 to arrange for a free, no obligation case review.

About Bernstein Liebhard LLP
Bernstein Liebhard LLP is a New York-based law firm exclusively representing injured persons in complex individual and class action lawsuits nationwide since 1993. As a national law firm, Bernstein Liebhard LLP possesses all of the legal and financial resources required to successfully challenge billion dollar pharmaceutical and medical device companies. As a result, our attorneys and legal staff have been able to recover more than $3.5 billion on behalf of our clients. The Firm was named by The National Law Journal to the Plaintiffs' Hot List, recognizing the top plaintiffs firms in the country, for 12 consecutive years. Bernstein Liebhard LLP is the only firm in the country to be named to this prestigious list for a dozen consecutive years.

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ATTORNEY ADVERTISING. © 2016 Bernstein Liebhard LLP. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Bernstein Liebhard LLP, 10 East 40th Street, New York, New York 10016, 800-511-5092. Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter.

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Xarelto Bleeding Instances Make Their Way To Litigation

Have you seen the ad where Kevin Nealon says he prefers Xarelto (rivaroxaban) over warfarin because it allows him to eat a healthy salad if he wants to? His statement makes it sound like Xarelto is a healthier choice, but the reason why you can eat leafy greens while taking Xarelto is the very thing that makes it such a dangerous medication. Vitamin K is the antidote for warfarin, but it does not reverse Xarelto. In fact, there is no antidote for Xarelto, so if you start bleeding it can be impossible to stop the bleeding in time to save your life, and you can bleed out and die from even a minor wound or from spontaneous internal bleeding.

Xarelto Defective Drug Lawsuits

More than 2,500 Xarelto lawsuits have been consolidated into multidistrict litigation (MDL). If you believe that you have been harmed by Xarelto or that your loved one died from a Xarelto bleeding event, you should speak with an experienced defective drug attorney right away, while you still have time to file your claim.

Xarelto victims in the MDL are alleging that Xarelto causes bleeding events and that the companies that make Xarelto were negligent because they put an anticlotting drug on the market without an antidote to reverse its action if bleeding occurs.

Xarelto has been on the market for over four years, and there is still no reversal agent for the drug. It is, along with other newer blood thinners, an ER doctor’s nightmare.

If you have been harmed by Xarelto or any defective drug, please talk to an experienced defective drug attorney right away to learn more about your rights.

Court Begins Process to Select Cases for Initial Bellwether Trials

NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 18, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- MT Services LLC, a Lawsuit Settlement News Reporting Company which operates lawsuitsettlementnews.com, reports today that Xarelto lawsuits have risen to approximately 2,400 cases against Bayer and Johnson & Johnson's Janssen Pharmaceutical Division as the court has started the process of selecting cases for the initial bellwether trials. 40 cases will be selected for the Xarelto litigation bellwether trial pool. 

The Xarelto multidistrict litigation (MDL) is currently underway in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Louisiana. A court order instructed both the plaintiffs and defense to each select 10 cases for the pool by January 11^th, five from the Eastern District of Louisiana, one from Mississippi, one from Texas, and three from other states. The court order also asked the parties to try to choose at least one case from six different injury categories. The injury categories include gastrointestinal bleed, brain bleed/hemorrhagic stroke, and rectal bleeding, and the court order is requesting cases of individuals who suffered these injuries while using Xarelto to prevent stroke, as well as individuals who used Xarelto to treat pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis. 

Additionally, they had to select an additional 20 lawsuits by January 15^th including 10 cases from Louisiana, two from Mississippi, and one case each from eight other states. Four bellwether trials are set to begin in February of 2017. The first two trials are set to take place in the Eastern District of Louisiana on February 6th, 2017 and March 13th, 2017. The third and fourth trials will take place in Mississippi and Texas on April 24th, 2017 and May 30th, 2017.

Court records now indicate that approximately 2,400 Xarelto cases are pending in the Eastern District of Louisiana against Xarelto's maker, Bayer and Johnson & Johnson's subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceutical Division. The lawsuits have similar allegations, claiming serious health problems, long hospital stays, and even death as a result of uncontrollable bleeding events due to Xarelto usage. There is no known antidote at this time. MTS also announced today that they have secured large capital for Xarelto funding. They are also reporting that they are able to provide assistance for Xarelto bleeding victims, or their loved ones, who are in need of an attorney. 

MTS encourages anyone who is looking for lawsuit funding on their Xarelto or Pradaxa case, or anyone looking for assistance with finding a Xarelto law firm or lawyer, to contact the company immediately for assistance. If you, or a loved one, need assistance, please visit the company's website at http://www.lawsuitsettlementnews.com/pradaxa-all-blood-thinner-cases for more information.

Chris Janish, CEO of MTS, commented on the recent announcement, "We urge victims or their family members who have been hospitalized due to uncontrollable bleeding events while taking Xarelto to contact us as the litigation is picking up steam and time is running out to file a claim. We are able to connect people with some of the most highly recognized Xarelto law firms that we work with to assist them with their cases."

If you already have an attorney and have filed a lawsuit and need a lawsuit funding cash advance, not to be confused with a lawsuit loan or pre-settlement loan, Lawsuit Settlement News can help you. Victims of Pradaxa or Xarelto usage and complications can apply for up to $50K in pre-settlement or settlement lawsuit funding. For a full list of the services that the company provides, visit: http://www.lawsuitsettlementnews.com/about-our-products-and-services

If you, or a loved one, have been injured by Xarelto or Pradaxa and need lawsuit money or lawsuit help, including finding a Xarelto or Pradaxa law firm, and would like to speak with a live agent who can answer any questions you may have, please call: 877.571.0405.

You may also fill out a quick application online at: www.lawsuitsettlementnews.com and an agent will contact you shortly.

Disclaimer:  MT Services LLC, operator of Lawsuitsettlementnews.com, is not a law firm and cannot provide legal advice on your case; however, MTS works with lawyers involved in mass tort litigations who are willing to provide a free legal consultation at the consumer's request. For a list of full disclosures please visit the company's website disclosure page.

The Controversial Approval of Xarelto by the FDA

The controversy over Xarelto approval by the FDA and alleged irregularities in the conduct of the ROCKET-AF clinical trial continue to hang over the heads of Bayer and Janssen (a division of Johnson & Johnson), the manufacturers and marketers of Xarelto, in the national MDL litigation. Since the inception of the Xarelto MDL proceedings before Judge Fallon in New Orleans, the plaintiffs have contended that there were irregularities in the ROCKET-AF clinical study, which served as the basis for approval of the drug in the United States several years ago. The plaintiffs contend that irregularities in the conduct of that study underestimate the risks of serious Xarelto bleeding events (GI bleed, cardiac tamponade, intracranial hemorrhage, etc.) associated with Xarelto while overstating the benefits of the drug in preventing strokes when compared with warfarin (also known as Coumadin).

Over the past few months, there have been a number of motions filed in the MDL federal court proceedings seeking to unseal a number of documents that may help to shed light on this issue. In February of 2016, the New York Times wrote an investigative report on irregularities that may have occurred during the clinical study.

On March 16, 2016, the Editor in Chief of the British Medical Journal sent a letter to Judge Fallon requesting that confidential information that has been uncovered during the course of the litigation be released to the public “so that appropriate review and scrutiny may take place. The documents at issue here are not a trivial matter:  they relate directly to ongoing regulatory investigations and question the safety of a medicine that is being taken by millions of patients around the world.” The BMJ Editor’s request specifically noted the need for release of sealed documents that relate to, among other things, “that the sponsor, Janssen, was aware of a malfunctioning device during the ROCKET-AF trial” and “evidence of possible misconduct during the peer review process of Duke Clinical Research Institute’s reanalysis of ROCKET-AF data, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.” On February 3, 2016, the British Medical Journal published an article entitled “Rivaroxaban:  can we trust the evidence?” which shed light into the possible use of a faulty device during the ROCKET-AF trial.

On March 15, 2016, the Project on Government Oversight (“POGO”), a nonprofit watchdog organization, also wrote to Judge Fallon seeking release of the sealed Xarelto documents that are included in the MDL discovery production. This group is particularly interested in the details regarding the ROCKET-AF clinical trial, oversight of Xarelto by the FDA and the European Medicines Agency, and the involvement of Dr. Robert Califf (who is now the Commissioner of the FDA) in the clinical trial that led to the FDA’s approval of Xarelto.

In its letter, POGO noted to Judge Fallon: “In the litigation before you, plaintiffs and defendants have given sharply divergent accounts of evidence that remains under seal, leaving all others to wonder which account if either is accurate. The press and the public should be permitted to see the evidence in this case and assess it for themselves.” The letter to the judge closed by saying: “All too often, class action lawsuits and the like raise important questions involving the public interest and are then resolved on terms that forever bury the answers. Please do not allow that to happen in this case. Please unseal the evidence as complete and expeditiously as possible.”

The judge’s order does not directly address these requests other than to make the letters part of the MDL record. Judge Fallon did, however, enter orders relating to the Plaintiffs’ Motion to Challenge Confidentiality Designations and directed that certain exhibits be delivered to the Food & Drug Administration. Also, it appears that there are a number of investigations ongoing by these watchdog organizations, regulatory agencies, and medical journals with regard to these troubling issues.

(Originally printed at
http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/xarelto-s-approval-by-the-fda-83977/