A number of major pharmaceutical companies are being hit with a low testosterone (low-t) lawsuit from a man who was prescribed a variety of testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) products and suffered potentially fatal complications.

This low-t lawsuit is being filed by a couple from Arizona claiming that the husband had tried a number of TRT options without any prior knowledge of their side effects.

Plaintiff couple Mark C. and Nicole C. allege that Mark suffered a heart attack as a direct result of taking one or more of the following testosterone replacement therapy products: AndroGel, Testim, Axiron, Depo-Testosterone, AndroDerm, Testopel, Fortesta, Striant, Delatestryl.

Mark began using TRT on Nov. 09, 2009, trying each of the low-t options over a course of nearly three years.

Low Testosterone Therapy Allegations

Mark experienced no initial side effects when first prescribed the low-t therapy products until he suffered a heart attack on Sept. 10, 2012. At this point, Mark had ceased using the products and had just recently learned of the association between low-t products and cardiac complications.

The patient population and medical community became aware of this association from two recently published studies.

The first study comes from the December 2013 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, which primarily focused on elderly men using low-t product. Results of the study indicated that older men with heart conditions were vulnerable to blood clot formation after using testosterone replacement therapy.

In another study published in the January 2014 issue of PloSOne, the subjects studied expanded to younger men who were using low-t therapy. The findings of this study indicated that younger men with pre-existing heart conditions were at risk for heart attacks, while older men were at risk regardless of their cardiac health.

Before these studies were released, men who were experiencing the symptoms of aging such as weight gain, loss of muscle, and loss of sex drive, commonly asked for testosterone replacement therapy products.

Abbott Laboratories and other low-t manufacturing companies had allegedly setup a marketing campaign that described aging symptoms to be the same as testosterone depletion symptoms.

Doctors in the United States currently write approximately 5.3 million low-t prescriptions yearly to men who believe they are suffering from low testosterone. Mark and his wife are filing allegations of product liability and negligence against these pharmaceutical companies and also allege the companies provided insufficient warnings.

Mark insists that he never would have used AndroGel or other low-t products if he had known the risks of cardiac attacks.

Due to the companies’ role in manufacturing, selling, marketing, and distributing allegedly dangerous products, Mark and his wife are suing Abbott Laboratories and other named pharmaceutical companies.

Other pharmaceutical companies named in this lawsuit include: AbbVie Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, Auxilium Pharmaceuticals, and Endo Pharmaceuticals.

The Low-T Lawsuit is Case No, 1:15-cv-09930 and the Testosterone Product MDL is In Re: Testosterone Replacement Therapy Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2545, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.