The makers of the popularly prescribed blood thinner Xarelto are facing a new Xarelto wrongful death lawsuit filed by the surviving spouse of a Riverside County, California woman.

Plaintiff Robert S., on behalf of his deceased wife filed the Xarelto wrongful death lawsuit, alleging Janssen Pharmaceutical, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson and the co-marketer of Xarelto, and Bayer Healthcare AG failed to warn patients and physicians of the increased risks of irreversible and fatal internal bleeding when using Xarelto.

According to Robert’s allegations, his wife Sylvia began ingesting Xarelto in April 2014 and suffered a gastrointestinal bleed on July 21, 2014 alleging as a direct result of using Xarelto.  Sylvia ultimately died on February 20, 2015.

In filing this Xarelto wrongful death lawsuit, Robert is seeking compensatory, economic, and punitive damages for Bayer’s, and Janssen Pharmaceutical’s alleged deceptive and reckless practices in misrepresenting and omitting numerous facts about the dangers of taking Xarelto and causing the death of his wife Sylvia in part by their gross negligence.

The filed complaint indicates a demand for a jury trial for this case.

Xarelto Bleeding Complications

Approved by the FDA in 2011. Xarelto was touted as new oral anticoagulant treatment alternative to warfarin (Coumadin), a long-established safe treatment for preventing stroke and systemic embolism.

It is the second most prescribed drug for treatment of atrial fibrillation, behind warfarin, and achieved blockbuster status with sales approximately $2 billion dollars in 2015.

Xarelto is marketed as a single daily does pill that does not require the need to measure a patient’s blood plasma levels, touting it more convenient thatn warfarin, and does not limit a patient’s diet like the aforementioned blood thinner.

The single does and no blood testing requirements or dietary constraints are marketed by Janssen and Bayer as the “Xarelto Difference”.

Yet while the convenience of Xarelto may be appealing, the use of the blood thinner without appropriate blood monitoring, dose adjustment and twice a day dosing may cause major life-threatening bleeding events.

Robert, along with thousands of others, contend that the drug makers were aware of this Xarelto risk but failed to disclose this vital health information to patients, doctors, and the FDA.

More importantly, Xarelto’s significant risk of server, and sometimes fatal, internal bleeding, has no antidote to reverse its effects, unlike warfarin.

Therefore, in the event of bleeding complications, there is no reversal agent, leaving doctors with no recourse to stop the bleeding, Robert’s Xarelto wrongful death lawsuit states.

Other potential injuries caused through the use of Xarelto include:

• thrombosis (blood clots)
• decreased hemoglobin (a substance that carries oxygen in red blood cells)
• cerebrovascular accidents (an event that leads to a cerebral hemorrhage)
• hematoma (a semisolid mass in the blood)
• peripheral edema (swelling of the lower limbs)
• dyspnea (difficulty breathing)

Filing a Xarelto Wrongful Death Lawsuit

Xarelto still does not have a “black box” warning informing patients or prescribing doctors that Xarelto can cause irreversible bleeds. In fact, a label change as recent as March 2014 still fails to contain this type of warning on Xarelto packaging or advertising.

The Xarelto Wrongful Death Lawsuit is part of the Xarelto MDL known as In re: Xarelto (Rivaroxaban) Products Liability Litigation, MDL 2592, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.