Boehringer Hit with New Sanctions in Pradaxa MDL

Boehringer Ingelheim, the manufacturer of the controversial blood thinning medication Pradaxa, has been hit with new sanctions in multidistrict litigation where hundreds lawsuits over the safety of Pradaxa have been consolidated.

Pradaxa has been a great source of substantial legal action Boehringer Ingelheim, and a federal judge has ruled that Boehringer needs to pay up for the cost of holding depositions in Europe.

This issue comes as part of the larger issue that Boehringer is a European pharmaceutical company facing massive litigation in the United States over the safety of Pradaxa. This has created certain logistical challenges regarding depositions and who foots the bill for this part of the transcontinental procedures.

On March 13, 2014, an Illinois federal judge clarified that Boehringer must pay for the cost of renting offices in Amsterdam for depositions. Earlier in the case, U.S. District Judge David Herndon stated that Boehringer needed to make its European employees available for depositions in the United States. That was in December 2013. But in January 2014, the Seventh Circuit Court of appeals ruled that this was beyond Judge Herndon’s authority.

The new order was to clarify that Boehringer still had to foot the bill for the cost of these depositions, but not actually fly their employees to the United States. Additionally, Boehringer has been fined more than a million dollars over court procedures so far in the case.

The fines so far have been due to the fact that Judge Herndon found that Boehringer failed to establish a litigation hold in a timely manner. A litigation hold is a procedure to preserve evidence related to a trial.

The December ruling determined that Boehringer failed to live up to their obligations to do so, and needed to be fined.

While part of this ruling—that Boehringer needed to fly out employees—was overturned, the core part of the ruling remained in place.

The Pradaxa Lawsuit Accusations

The entire Pradaxa MDL, sometimes referred to as a Pradaxa class action lawsuit, is centered on the safety of Boehringer’s drug, Pradaxa.

Pradaxa is a next-generation blood thinner or anticoagulant. Anticoagulants are designed to prevent or break down dangerous blood clots within the body. When blood clots in the circulatory system, it can block the blood flow to vital organs, and cause medical emergencies like strokes and pulmonary embolisms.

All anticoagulants carry the risk of uncontrolled bleeding, but Pradaxa was released onto the market without an antidote — a fact that was allegedly concealed from patients and prescribing physicians. Since anticoagulants impair the body’s ability to form blood clots, patients can temporarily lose the ability to form clots when they need to. Such patients may die from tiny internal bleeding injuries.

Hundreds of deaths have been linked to Pradaxa bleeding events, leading to hundreds of Pradaxa lawsuits and a Pradaxa class action lawsuit.

It is alleged that older anticoagulants are safer than Pradaxa, since they have reversal agents available in the event of uncontrolled bleeding. For example, if a patient on Warfarin (a first-generation anticoagulant) suffers uncontrollable bleeding, a high does of vitamin K can deactivate the drug in the patient’s system.

Pradaxa lawsuits and Pradaxa class action lawsuits allege that Boehringer promoted the drug in spite of the fact that it had no known reversal agent.

File a Pradaxa Class Action Lawsuit Claim

If you or a loved one took Pradaxa and experienced an uncontrolled bleeding incident, you may be entitled to compensation. But you need to act quickly to ensure that your rights are respected. You can start to explore your options by visiting the Pradaxa Internal Bleeding Class Action Lawsuit Investigation. There, you can enter information about your situation for a free legal review by a trained expert with a background in this type of litigation.