Pradaxa lawsuits have alleged that uncontrollable bleeding with Pradaxa is a major problem. However, there may be hope for patients with Pradaxa bleeding in the form of a reversal agent or Pradaxa antidote.

What is Pradaxa?

Pradaxa is a blood thinner or anticoagulant. Blood thinners are drugs designed to reduce the chance of a blood clot forming inside the body. When blood clots form in the body, they can lodge inside blood vessels and block them, causing stroke, pulmonary embolism, and heart attack. Blood thinners like Pradaxa are designed to help patients at risk for these conditions, but carry risks of their own.

All blood thinners carry the risk of working too well, and Pradaxa is no different. Sometimes, patients taking Pradaxa and other blood thinners lose the ability to form blood clots at all. When this happens, a patient can bleed to death from a very minor injury, including internal injuries. This can cause gastrointestinal bleeding, pulmonary bleeding, and other Pradaxa bleeding injuries.

However, newer-generation blood thinners like Pradaxa may be even more dangerous than older blood thinners. When a patient taking an older blood thinner like Warfarin has uncontrollable bleeding, doctors can give patients an injection of vitamin K to effectively shut down the drug’s effects, allowing the patient to stop bleeding. Newer drugs like Pradaxa have no known reversal agents, but this may be changing.

Pradaxa Antidote In The Works

A possible Pradaxa antidote or reversal agent has been announced by drug maker Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals. The new drug is called Re-Verse Ad. The company has received approval to test Re-Verse Ad in clinical trials across 30 nations. In this clinical trial, Pradaxa patients that experience uncontrollable bleeding could receive the Pradaxa antidote drug in emergency rooms, greatly simplifying treatment of this medical emergency.

Pradaxa Lawsuits

Despite the quest for a Pradaxa antidote, Pradaxa lawsuits continue to grow. Pradaxa lawsuits typically allege that drug makers were aware—or reasonably should have been aware—of the risk of Pradaxa bleeding, but marketed Pradaxa anyway. Pradaxa lawsuits also allege that there was no known reversal agent to Pradaxa, making the drug more dangerous than older, proven blood thinners like Warfarin.

So many Pradaxa lawsuits have been filed that the legal system has had to resort to a process called a multidistrict litigation or MDL. In MDLs, the legal system coordinates similar lawsuits together in order to help streamline the legal process by dealing with similar Pradaxa lawsuits in bulk. Pradaxa lawsuits are ideal for inclusion in an MDL since they often make similar claims and hinge on similar evidence.

The Pradaxa MDL is In re: Pradaxa (Dabigatran Etexilate) Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2385, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois.