Depositions in the federal Benicar multidistrict litigation are scheduled to began in January, according to a recent court order.

The order set the schedule for the next few months of discovery in a litigation that combines at least 1,000 separate Benicar lawsuits. Depositions of the drug companies’ representatives will began the week of Jan. 18 and will proceed at a minimum of two per week through February 26.

Some of the witnesses to be deposed are Japan-based employees of Daiichi Sankyo who may be compelled to travel to the United States to give their depositions.

Document production also continues. The current order grants the plaintiffs leave to designate 15 more of the defendants’ custodians to be queried for documentary evidence.

The court plans to address subsequent scheduling at a later scheduling conference, during which it plans to accelerate the schedule for remaining depositions.

The Benicar MDL

This Benicar multidistrict litigation, or MDL, is a consolidation of all lawsuits in the federal court system that allege excessive gastrointestinal side effects caused by the blood pressure medication Benicar. These claims were consolidated through transfer to a federal court in New Jersey in April 2015. Subsequent Benicar lawsuits will either be filed in that court or transferred there.

Benicar, or olmesartan, was approved by the FDA in April 2002 as a treatment for hypertension. The same active ingredient is combined with other drugs in the products Benicar HCT, Azor and Tribenzor. According to the master complaint in the Benicar MDL, defendant Daiichi Sankyo refers to these drugs as the “Benicar Family.”

Generally, the plaintiffs in the MDL allege that Benicar caused them to have a set of severe gastrointestinal symptoms known as sprue-like enteropathy. This condition is associated with atrophy of the villi, the tiny structures that line the inside of the intestines and facilitate absorption of nutrients from food. Patients with sprue-like enteropathy suffer symptoms like severe and chronic diarrhea, dehydration, malnutrition and weight loss.

Plaintiffs allege that defendants Daiichi Sankyo and Forest Laboratories knew about the link between Benicar and sprue-like enteropathy for years, yet failed to properly warn patients or physicians about that risk. The plaintiffs say they had no notice of the gastrointestinal symptoms associated with Benicar until the FDA required the defendants to include a warning on its label in July 2013.

The master complaint says that the FDA had identified 23 cases reported to its Adverse Event Reporting System in which patients taking olmesartan presented with chronic diarrhea, weight loss, and in some cases intestinal villous atrophy found on biopsy. The FDA noted all these patients’ symptoms improved after discontinuing olmesartan. Research studies from 2012 and 2013, one of them conducted by the Mayo Clinic, showed similar results.

The Benicar MDL is MDL No. 2606 in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

Outside the federal court system, several other Benicar lawsuits are pending in New Jersey state court. In May 2015, the defendants requested an MDL-like consolidation of at least 59 known Benicar lawsuits in the New Jersey state court system.