A group of Abilify lawyers recently met with a federal judge to plan a multidistrict litigation that could end up hosting thousands of Abilify lawsuits.

Early in November, U.S. District Judge M. Casey Rodgers held a conference with Abilify lawyers to plan administrative and procedural matters for the newly-formed Abilify multidistrict litigation, or MDL.

This MDL is a consolidation of individual Abilify lawsuits brought by plaintiffs against Bristol-Myers Squibb and Otsuka Pharmaceuticals, the makers of the psychiatric drug Abilify.

Generally, these plaintiffs claim Abilify caused them to engage in uncontrollable destructive behaviors like hypersexuality, excessive shopping or excessive gambling.

The federal court system sometimes combines cases like these into a single MDL in the interest of conducting more efficient pretrial procedures and avoiding inconsistent pretrial decisions among different judges.

The Abilify MDL was formed earlier this year at the request of Abilify lawyers for the plaintiffs. That request was granted this past October by the federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.

Future Abilify lawsuits filed in federal court will be transferred to the District of Arizona regardless of which other court they were filed in.

Abilify, or aripiprazole, is used to treat symptoms of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder. Since being introduced in 2002, it’s been a colossal success for Bristol-Myers Squibb, with annual sales reaching as high as $6 billion.

However, some patients report that after they began taking Abilify, they began to engage in uncontrollable compulsive behavior.

Some patients say they suffered from gambling addiction or shopping addiction that threatened to ruin them financially. Others reported uncontrollable urges to have sex or overeat.

Patients report these Abilify compulsive behaviors subside once the patient stops taking the drug.

Those who have taken to the court system to seek compensation for their losses allege Bristol-Myers Squibb knew Abilify could have such effects on patients but failed to issue an effective warning. Many say they never would have taken Abilify had they known about those risks.

Judge Seeks Coordination with Abilify Lawyers

The Abilify lawyers meeting with Judge Rodgers are representing some of the first few parties in the Abilify MDL. About 50 individual lawsuits have been transferred into the MDL since it was formed in October.

On the conference agenda is the formation of a general case management order that will govern things like the handling of documents, service of process, coordination with class action litigation and parallel state court actions, and whether or not to create a master complaint.

The judge and attorneys must also decide on whether to schedule so-called “bellwether” trials. These trials would be picked as exemplary cases that would be the first in the MDL to go to trial.

While the outcomes of these trials isn’t binding on other cases, they would give all parties a better idea of how their own evidence and arguments play out at trial and would possibly help the parties agree on settlements.

The Abilify MDL is In re: Abilify (Aripiprazole) Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2734 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.