A Federal judge has denied AbbVie’s request to divide expert discovery and summary judgment during pretrial proceedings for a group of six AndroGel lawsuits that will go to trial between October 2016 and April 2017. At the same time U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly deined AbbVie’s request, he outlined a schedule for selecting and preparing the cases.

In a case management order issued on May 29, 2015, Judge Kennelly stated that he rejected the company’s request to push back the upcoming low-T (low testosterone) product lawsuits because there was no way to implement Abbvie’s request to bifurcate the expert discovery and summary judgment in a fair and reasonable fashion.

According to the amended order, Judge Kennelly has ordered both parties to submit a proposed method by Aug. 10, 2015, for selecting which AndroGel lawsuits will become bellwether cases. The cases will be divided into two categories: lawsuits involving blood-clot injuries that allegedly developed from low testosterone treatment therapy, and claims alleging that these low-T products caused heart attacks. Ultimately, Judge Kennelly expects to issue the final bellwether selection order by Aug. 31, 2015.

Once Judge Kennelly has issued the selection order, the plaintiffs and defendants are expected to select eight AndroGel lawsuits alleging blood clot injuries and eight others claiming heart attacks by Oct. 31, 2015. By March 1, 2016, the court expects the parties to choose three blood-clot cases and three heart attack cases to go to trial, with the first AndroGel blood clot case set to begin on Oct. 31, 2016.

The low-t cases were consolidated into a multidistrict litigation (MDL) centralized in the Northern District of Illinois. Because AndroGel is the most widely-used testosterone replacement therapy product, AndroGel lawsuits will represent the litigation movement.

Consolidating these lawsuits allows the parties to gauge how juries may react to certain evidence, and clears the way for a more efficient litigation process. While the outcomes of these early bellwether trials will not be binding on future cases, they could influence potential AndroGel settlement negotiations. If the litigation is not settled after the bellwether trials, AbbVie may face hundreds of individual AndroGel lawsuits.

Overview of Testosterone Allegations

More than 1,500 low-T product liability lawsuits are pending throughout the federal court system, filed by men who suffered cardiac attacks or blood clot injuries. Low-T products involved in the litigation include AndroGel, Testim, Axiron, and other similar drugs meant to treat low testosterone.

According to experts, doctors in the United States write over 5 million prescriptions for low testosterone treatment products a year. For years, low-T product manufacturers have targeted middle-aged and elderly men who are trying to hold on to their youth.

Low-t drug manufacturing companies have focused their advertisements on the symptoms these men may feel, such as irritation, fatigue, weight gain, muscle loss, and loss of sexual activity. The advertisements insinuate that if men are experiencing these symptoms, their testosterone levels are depleting. What the companies fail to mention is that testosterone depletion is a perfectly natural part of aging, and the symptoms mentioned in the advertisement are a natural response to lowering testosterone levels.

Many plaintiffs who took the low-t drugs have filed product liability lawsuits against the manufacturers, seeking compensation for side effects such as blood clotting and cardiac attack.