Some patients who suffered excessive bleeding after taking Eliquis say they were not properly warned about the risk of Eliquis injury.

Eliquis is also known by its generic name apixaban. As an anticoagulant medication, Eliquis is approved by the FDA to help prevent blood-clot related injuries like stroke, pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis.

Anticoagulants like Eliquis are frequently prescribed to patients with atrial fibrillation to reduce the risk of stroke that comes with that condition.

In atrial fibrillation, an abnormality in the heart’s rhythm can cause blood to become stagnant at certain points within the circulatory system. Within those stagnant areas, blood clots may form that could potentially travel to the brain and cause a stroke.

By reducing the blood’s ability to clot, anticoagulants like Eliquis make it harder for those clots to form, thereby reducing the chance that the patient will suffer a stroke.

The Risk of Eliquis Injury

The flip side of that anticoagulant effect is a risk that unexpected bleeding, such as from an Eliquis injury or that would be expected during emergency surgery, may be harder to control for patients on Eliquis.

Excessive bleeding wouldn’t be such a problematic risk for Eliquis patients if, as with certain older anticoagulants, there were an effective antidote.

Unfortunately, there’s no such antidote available that works on Eliquis. The drug was released onto the market with no available reversal agent that can curb its anticoagulant effect.

Eliquis is one of a new generation of anticoagulants all of which were introduced to the market without an antidote available. These drugs were developed in part to have certain advantages over the old anticoagulant warfarin.

But one advantatge that warfarin maintained over them was that it does have an effective antidote – namely, vitamin K.

Manufacturers have been working on antidotes for the new anticoagulants but have yet to get an antidote for Eliquis approved. In August 2016, the FDA rejected an application for a proposed Eliquis antidote, seeking more information about the drug’s manufacture.

Until an antidote is developed that can pass muster with the FDA, patients will continue to live with the risk that an Eliquis injury may produce bleeding that can’t be medically controlled.

Some patients who suffered excessive bleeding while on Eliquis say they weren’t aware of the risk associated with the drug when they chose to take it.

As has already happened with other new anticoagulants, patients who suffered unexpected complications have begun to take on the drug’s manufacturers in court.

These plaintiffs point out that the makers of drugs like Eliquis have a duty to adequately warn patients and doctors about what side effects they can expect.

They argue that manufacturers Pfizer Inc. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. breached that duty, in part by failing to alert them of the risks associated with Eliquis.

Companies Request Eliquis MDL

In October 2016, the companies asked a federal judicial panel to consolidate all federal Eliquis injury claims into a single multidistrict litigation, or MDL, that would handle them all together.

The companies noted that almost three dozen such lawsuits have already been filed. More such claims are expected to follow.