In an update regarding the highly-publicized AndroGel litigation, a request has been filed with the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) to consolidate all AndroGel lawsuits filed throughout the federal court system from multiple districts. The motion comes just weeks after roughly 30 AndroGel lawsuits filed in Illinois were consolidated into the Northern District of Illinois.

If the request for a federal AndroGel MDL  is granted, all current AndroGel lawsuits will be consolidated under a single judge during pretrial proceedings. The motion was filed on March 28, and will request to bring together at least 38 product liability lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Courts throughout the country. Each of these AndroGel lawsuits involves similar allegations about the testosterone product, including that it causes blood clots, heart attacks, stroke, and other cardiac problems.

Plaintiffs assert that as a direct result of using AndroGel, they developed severe blood clots. Due to the similar nature of these allegations, a group of plaintiffs has requested these cases be consolidated to avoid duplicate discovery, conflicting conclusions by different judges, and to speed up the litigation process.  The MDL motion requests that all these cases be centralized under District Court Judge Matthew F. Kennelly, who is already presiding over the AndroGel litigation in the Northern District of Illinois.

Overview of AndroGel Lawsuits

Currently, there are at least 36 AndroGel product liability lawsuits pending in Illinois, with additional cases awaiting litigation in Colorado and Pennsylvania.  Multiple legal experts have stated that more testosterone-injury related lawsuits are expected, in hundreds or thousands due to the products’ popularity. The main target of the litigation will be AndroGel’s manufacturing company AbbVie. The allegations against AbbVie focus on the company’s alleged failure to warn consumers about the possibility of cardiac complications as a side effect from AndroGel. In the past several months, AbbVie and several other pharmaceutical companies have been facing a growing number of allegations from consumers complaining that the defendants’ low-testosterone treatments had caused a variety of complications including heart attacks.

Other than Androgel, other testosterone products being investigated nationwide in this litigation matter include: Testim, AndroDerm, and Axiron. Consumers allege the companies had known about these dangerous testosterone side effects, but had withheld this information from the medical community and the public, in the interest of profits.

One of the most prominent research papers cited in the litigation was published in the November 2013 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, which suggested testosterone supplements may increase the risk of heart attacks.  A later study of this was published in the January issue of the medical journal PLOS ONE, which found that low testosterone treatment may actually double the risk of heart attacks for younger men who have heart disease, as well as men who are over the age of 65. In response to the findings, the FDA announced a safety investigation into these products on Jan. 31. This announcement led to the growing number of lawsuits.