A hypertension patient from Missouri has filed a new Benicar lawsuit alleging that medication caused him to suffer severe gastrointestinal symptoms.

Plaintiff Gregory S. says that after he started using Benicar in January 2011, he began to have severe gastrointestinal symptoms like nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and pain – symptoms indicative of a condition known as sprue-like enteropathy.

He attributes these symptoms, including the resulting emotional distress and medical expenses, to the Benicar he had been taking.

Gregory’s Benicar lawsuit is one of hundreds of similar actions now pending in a federal court in New Jersey as part of a multidistrict litigation, or MDL.

The MDL was created in April 2015 when the federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferred 15 Benicar lawsuits to a single court. The MDL has since grown to encompass over 1,200 similar claims.

Generally, the plaintiffs in these actions are alleging that the manufacturers of Benicar and other olmesartan-based medications failed to properly warn them and their doctors about the risk of Benicar diarrhea and other severe gastrointestinal side effects.

Benicar is a product of defendants Daiichi Sankyo, Forest Laboratories and their related companies. It was first approved by the FDA in 2002 as a treatment for the treatment of hypertension.

Benicar is a brand name for the drug olmesartan. The same drug is used in the brand-name medications Benicar HCT, Azor and Tribenzor, all of which are also at issue in the Benicar lawsuit MDL. According to the MDL’s master long form complaint, the defendants refer to these medications as the “Benicar Family.”

The FDA issued a warning in 2013 about the relationship between Benicar and a condition known as sprue-like enteropathy. The condition can result in chronic diarrhea leading to malnutrition, diarrhea and weight loss.

The warning noted 23 reports of serious Benicar diarrhea in its adverse event reporting system.

Simultaneous with the warning, the FDA mandated a warning be added to the labeling for drugs in the Benicar Family that would alert patients and doctors to the risk of chronic diarrhea and other symptoms of sprue-like enteropathy.

Recent Developments in the Benicar Lawsuit MDL

In April 2016, U.S. District Judge Robert B. Kugler declined to dismiss from the MDL four Benicar lawsuits in which the plaintiffs had alleged symptoms whose relationship to Benicar may have been questionable.

Two of those plaintiffs’ symptoms predated their use of Benicar, and the other two alleged gastrointestinal conditions other than sprue-like enteropathy, conditions that Daiichi says are not necessarily associated with Benicar.

In declining to dismiss those claims, Judge Kugler agreed with the plaintiffs that their claims were not misleading and were supported by medical evidence.

The judge acknowledged the possibility the plaintiffs had misinterpreted their own symptoms, and he said he did not believe fraud was an issue in these cases.

Judge Kugler also declined Daiichi’s request that he sanction one plaintiff who allegedly submitted untrue information on her plaintiff fact sheet.

The Benicar Lawsuit is filed under the larger multidistrict litigation In Re:  Benicar (Olmesartan) Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2606, U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, Camden Vicinage.