Prescription Drugs

Published on: June 2, 2017

No Cause for Serious Concern as Federal Jury Rules in Favor of Johnson & Johnson, Bayer in Initial Xarelto Bellwether Trial

In the first bellwether product liability trial regarding the blood thinner Xarelto a New Orleans jury has ruled in favor of Johnson & Johnson and Bayer. Although this is not a favorable decision for the plaintiff, those bringing future lawsuits should not panic.

The lawsuit was brought by Louisiana resident Joseph Boudreaux. Boudreaux brought the suit against Johnson & Johnson and Bayer, the joint developers of Xarelto, after the drug allegedly caused him internal bleeding that required a lengthy hospital stay in the intensive care unit, multiple heart procedures as well as many blood transfusions. This uncontrollable internal bleeding occurred only one month after Boudreaux began taking Xarelto.

Currently, the total number of Xarelto based lawsuits is over 16,000 and growing. Xarelto is an anticoagulant that is commonly used to treat blood clots. The anticoagulant is Bayer’s top selling drug and is Johnson & Johnson’s third highest selling drug. The lawsuits are being or have been filed by patients that used Xarelto and experienced negative side effect, most commonly internal bleeding. Many of the lawsuits are based on the claim that Johnson & Johnson and Bayer did not adequately warn individuals of the possible risks linked to Xarelto, thus claiming that they were misled.

Published on: May 15, 2017

GlaxoSmithKline to Pay Multimillion Sum After Widow’s Successful Paxil Lawsuit

by Naumes Law

An antidepressant drug Paxil related suicide lawsuit resulted in a multimillion dollar verdict in favor of the plaintiff. In late April, a Chicago jury awarded widow Wendy Dolin $3 Million in her lawsuit against GlaxoSmithKline, the British pharmaceutical company and developer of the antidepressant Paxil.

Dolin brought the claim against GlaxoSmithKline due to their drug’s lack of proper warning labels and its connection to her late husband Stewart Dolin’s suicide. Ultimately the federal jury concluded, after an almost six-week trial, that GlaxoSmithKline was liable and failed to warn of the possible side effects of the risk of increased suicidal thoughts and behaviors to prescribing doctors and patients taking the medication.

Stewart Dolin was a Chicago lawyer at Reed Smith LLP who served as co-chair of the corporate and securities practice at the firm. He was taking the generic version of the antidepressant Paxil. Stewart Dolin was prescribed and using paroxetine, the generic equivalent to Paxil, for less than a week in July 2010 before he jumped in front of a Chicago Transit Blue Line train, taking his own life at the age of 57.

Published on: March 20, 2017

Xarelto Negative Side Effect Leading to Major Lawsuits

by Naumes Law

Xarelto (rivaroxaban) is commonly marketed in the United States as a blood-thinner generally prescribed to combat blood clots. Although, the serious nature of the side effects caused by Xarelto are leading to a staggering number of lawsuits.

Current and former users and their families are claiming that the risks and side effects of Xarelto were not made clear when they were prescribed the drug. Also, those who have used Xarelto are alleging that they were not properly warned about the negative effects of Xarelto prior to their usage of the drug.

Those bringing suit found that the drug caused them to suffer from harmful side effect(s) due to their consumption of the drug. Xarelto side effects may include, but are not limited to:

Published on: August 10, 2016

Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Settles with 4,000 Pradaxa Victims

by Naumes Law

In 2010, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approve the blood thinner Pradaxa. Pradaxa was used by patients to prevent blood clots from forming due to the individual’s irregular heart rhythm (atrial fibrillation). The drug was produced by German manufacturer Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals as a substitute to the drug warfarin. Initially, Pradaxa was advertised as a safe blood thinner that did not require patient dietary restrictions (unlike warfarin that requires dietary restrictions as well as weekly exams) and was readily prescribed to patients by their doctors.

Although only a year after the drug was approved by the U.S. FDA in 2011, over 540 patients died from using of the drug Pradaxa, while thousands also were left suffering from negative side effects because of the drug according to the FDA data. Family members of the deceased and those who have experienced negative side effects brought lawsuits against the German manufacturer Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals (Boehringer).

Side effects of Pradaxa include, but are not limited to:

Published on: August 1, 2016

Is the anti-nausea drug Zofran causing birth defects? Hundreds of families and pregnant women are claiming so

by Naumes Law

A staggering number of families have made claims against the drug manufacturing company GlaxoSmithKline. These claims are centered around GlaxoSmithKline’s drug Zofran (the generic form of which is named ondansetron and is commonly used to prevent nausea, vomiting and other sicknesses in cancer patients during various cancer surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation therapy) and that Zofran factored into negative effects as a result of being prescribed and consuming the drug while pregnant, particularly in terms of various types of birth defects.

Zofran is a drug that frequently can be prescribed and used in attempts to cure morning sickness in pregnant females. Many of the women are prescribed Zofran during their first trimester (due to the large amount of nausea and overall morning sickness experienced during that specific period of their pregnancy). Furthermore, research has found that during the first trimester of the pregnancy the fetus is its most vulnerable. Thus the fetus can be negatively affected by outside elements that factor into proper human development, such as the Zofran drug taken by their pregnant mothers during pregnancy.

The FDA has recognized Zofran a Category B pregnancy medication. This recognition has been given to Zofran because a properly controlled testing of the drug’s safety is unavailable to be done on pregnant women. Although, researchers have continued to examine the effects of Zofran by observing infants, whose mothers took Zofran, after their birth. Many researchers have found an increase in negative effects among those infants, when compared to infants whose mothers did not take Zofran during pregnancy. The birth defects of Zofran include: