As numerous consumers report experiencing compulsive behavior as a side effect of taking Rexulti and Ability, lawyers investigate the possibility of an Ability lawsuit.

Plaintiff Su Ann E. joins a multidistrict litigation that alleges Abilify causes patients to develop compulsive urges and behaviors. According to Su Ann, she developed an urge to compulsively gamble, causing her to lose over $10,000, and leading to her Abilify lawsuit.

She and other patients claim that the drug’s manufacturers, Bristol-Meyers Squibb Company and Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., knew that the drug was likely to make consumers develop compulsive behaviors like gambling and actively chose to not notify consumers.

Su Ann’s Abilify lawsuit claims that she took Abilify between January 2011 and May 2017. Before that time, she states that she did not experience the urge to compulsively gamble; after starting to take Abilify, she developed that urge. As a result, she claims she experienced financial injury, neuropsychiatric and physical injury as a result of the drug’s side effects, and emotional injury due to the compulsive gambling side effects that she experienced from taking Abilify.

What is Abilify?

Abilify is a prescription drug that is used to treat depression, bipolar I disorder, and schizophrenia. It is fairly popular, as tens of thousands of people are prescribed Abilify annually. Consumers across the United States, however, have claimed that the drug is harmful, causing patients to develop compulsive behaviors including gambling, binge eating, shopping and sex.

Allegedly, American users of the drug were not sufficiently warned of its potential harmful side effects. Consumers claim that before 2016, no warning was given to U.S. users of the potential compulsive behavior side effects, though the drug’s manufacturers allegedly knew of the side effect before then.

European and Canadian audiences were allegedly warned of the drug’s link to compulsive gambling long before 2016.

Around November 2012, the European Medicines Agency allegedly had established sufficiently that the drug was linked to compulsive gambling and other behaviors, and required the drug companies to include a warning of the side effect when marketing to European audiences.

The group of American consumers in the Abilify lawsuit additionally claim that the company had also warned Canadian consumers of the drug’s link to compulsive behaviors, and had accordingly included that information in drug labeling and associated drug information long before 2016 — the Canadian and European labels allegedly warned of “pathological gambling.”

It wasn’t until January 2016, after the FDA announced warnings regarding the potential link between Abilify and compulsive behavior, the drug’s information was changed to include “pathological gambling” on the drug’s list of side effects.

Su Ann and other consumers claim this warning is not sufficient — allegedly this information was included only in the postmarking experience section of the U.S. label. She claims that Bristol-Meyers did not include this information in the medication guide, where it was most likely to be seen by consumers. She states that only in May 2016 was a warning of “compulsive or uncontrollable urges to gamble, binge eat, shop, and have sex” added to the drug’s American label.

In the Abilify lawsuit, many American consumers of the drug have claimed that Bristol-Meyers Squibb Company and Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. knowingly concealed information about the drug’s connection with compulsive behavior, knowingly endangering many patients for years.

The Abilify Compulsive Gambling MDL is Case No. 3:16-md-02734-MCR-GRJ, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, Pensacola Division.