In light of the ever-increasing number of Xarelto lawsuits filed in federal courts, similarly alleging that patients suffered severe bleeding injuries from taking the blood thinner, a federal judge has ordered four bellwether trials to be scheduled to begin during the first half of 2017.

Xarelto is a new generation anticoagulant introduced by Janssen Pharmaceutical and Bayer Healthcare as an allegedly superior alternative to Warfarin, the standard blood thinner medication.

Blood thinners or anticoagulants, like Xarelto, are usually prescribed to patients who are at risk of suffering pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis, and other clotting issues.

However, according to various reports and Xarelto lawsuits, the drug has allegedly caused some dangerous bleeding side effects that have led to serious injury and even death in some cases for certain patients.

History of Xarelto Litigation

In December 2014, all Xarelto bleeding lawsuits filed against the drug’s manufacturers Janssen Pharmaceutical and Bayer Healthcare were centralized in a multidistrict litigation in the Eastern District of Louisiana before U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon.

Consolidation of these Xarelto lawsuits into one MDL will allow for coordinated discovery and early test or bellwether trials that will likely help the court avoid conflicting pretrial rulings. Bellwether cases will also allow for both plaintiff and defendants to gauge how prospective juries will react to evidence and testimonies that will likely be brought up again and again in similar Xarelto cases.

According to the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation’s latest case list, there are 1,694 identified Xarelto cases pending trial before Judge Fallon. Xarelto injury attorneys speculate, however, that thousands of more cases will be added to this preliminary estimate for the Xarelto MDL.

Xarelto Bellwether Trials

As previously stated, the judge presiding over this Xarelto side effects MDL recently issued an order in mid-September, which detailed the process by which a small group of Xarelto lawsuits will be prepared for the four bellwether trials that have been set to take place between February and May of 2017.

Judge Fallon’s case management order states that the first two Xarelto bleeding bellwether trials will take place in the Eastern District of Louisiana on Feb. 6 and March 13, 2017, while the third will be held in Mississippi federal court on April 24, 2017, and the fourth bellwether case will go to trial in Texas court on May 30 of the same year.

The Xarelto lawsuits that will serve as the four bellwether cases have yet to be determined, though according to the judge the bellwether trial cases will be selected from a pool of about 40 Xarelto lawsuits that will be included in the initial Xarelto bellwether discovery pool. This group of 40 cases will be selected sometime in January 2016.

While the outcome of the Xarelto bellwether lawsuits will not be binding on all other cases consolidated in this Xarelto MDL, the rulings in these cases may influence the inevitable Xarelto settlements that will follow these early trials.

While it is not 100 percent certain that the drug manufacturers will settle, it is highly likely considering the sheer number of Xarelto bleeding risk lawsuits filed against Janssen and Bayer.