Over the past two years, Johnson & Johnson and Bayer Pharmaceuticals have faced serious allegations of product liability charges concerning Xarelto.

This anticoagulant was jointly released by these pharmaceutical companies in 2011, and has become both a financial success and legal nightmares its makers.

In one of the most recent developments of the Xarelto litigation, over two dozen plaintiffs claimed that the companies did not sufficiently describe the risk of their blood-thinner and had been more concerned with garnering profits.

These new Xarelto bleeding lawsuits were filed in Louisiana federal court, and similarly claim the companies deliberately concealed the risk of uncontrollable bleeding in order to protect the drug’s market value.

These plaintiffs, two of which represent former patients who died of Xarelto bleeding, accuse Bayer and Johnson & Johnson of exaggerating the positive attributes of the drug and point out how aggressive the drug’s marketing campaign, while downplaying the potential risk of gastrointestinal bleeding.

Furthermore, the studies the defendants had referenced in their Xarelto advertisements were reportedly inaccurate and unreliable. The plaintiffs pointed out several points of falsifications, discarded medical records, and improper dosing by Bayer and Johnson & Johnson.

Interestingly enough, the plaintiffs point out that the defendants had insufficiently described the risk of Xarelto complications while the drama surrounding Pradaxa, Xarelto’s predecessor was proceeding.

Despite numerous allegations and injury reports indicating Pradaxa bleeding from the United States and abroad, Bayer and Johnson & Johnson did not perform any additional studies or investigations into the safety of Xarelto.

Overview of Xarelto Bleeding Complications

Both Pradaxa and Xarelto are a part of the new-generation anticoagulants, which were developed and released to directly compete with Warfarin. Unlike Warfarin, the newer anticoagulants are only prescribed in one dose, did not require frequent doctor appointments, and reportedly work at a faster efficiency rate.

However, experts state that it was the lack of blood-monitoring which put the patients at such risk. Additionally, new-generation anticoagulants do not yet have an official stopping agent in the case of internal bleeding, another safety feature that Warfarin proudly offers.

Despite the severity of these complications, the pharmaceutical companies allegedly chose to omit this information from Xarelto’s warning label to protect profit margins.

These allegations match court records, as Xarelto was previously the most heavily advertised medication in medical journals, with Johnson & Johnson and Bayer focusing their ads on the drug’s ability to prevent stroke and systemic embolism.

Overall, the defendants had allegedly provided false or fraudulent information, leaving the patients and doctors completely unaware of potential Xarelto complications. The plaintiffs in these claims are not only filing on behalf of themselves, but on the deceased patients who died of uncontrollable bleeding.

Meanwhile, Johnson & Johnson and Bayer Pharmaceuticals continue to deny all allegations and claim that the Xarelto warning label clearly describes the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding. These companies have been hit with a number of Xarelto lawsuits, which have mostly been consolidated in Louisiana’s federal court in late 2014 by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.

The panel had rejected the companies’ argument against consolidation, which claimed that there were too many variables between the similar cases, such as medical history and prescription doses, to warrant consolidation.

This Xarelto Lawsuit Adams v. Jansen Research & Development LLC, Johnson & Johnson, Bayer Pharmaceuticals, et al, Case No. 2:15-cv-04273 in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Louisiana.