Xarelto bleeding lawsuits are moving  forward. A major meeting has been scheduled this month to lay the groundwork for the impending mass legal action.

In December, the court system started to coordinate the various Xarelto lawsuits that had been filed by patients and their families. At the time, there were about 21 Xarelto lawsuits scattered across 10 federal courts.

The court system created a multidistrict litigation, or MDL, to centralize the Xarelto bleeding lawsuits. An MDL is a coordinated group of lawsuits, a process designed to help streamline the legal system.

Now, all of the Xarelto lawsuits have been centralized in a Louisiana district court. And while an MDL is less complex than tens, hundreds, or even thousands of individual lawsuits, it does require some extra organization. This is where the upcoming meeting fits in.

A Louisiana judge has called for a meeting on Jan. 29 to help organize the Xarelto MDL. This meeting will have lawyers from both sides of the Xarelto lawsuit hammer out the framework for Xarelto lawsuits.

It is expected that there could be thousands of such lawsuits based on postmarket surveillance and the prevalence of Xarelto prescriptions, so organizational meetings like this one are critical to keep the Xarelto MDL running smoothly.

Xarelto is a type of drug called a blood thinner or anticoagulant. These drugs are designed to interfere with blood clotting. While blood clotting is a natural part of the healing process for humans, this process can cause devastating problems when it misfires.

For example, when a blood clot forms in the brain, it can cause a stroke. Anticoagulants like Xarelto are designed to reduce the risk of heart attacks, stroke, and pulmonary embolism. However, all anticoagulants carry some risk, and newer blood thinners like Xarelto may have their own special risks.

All blood thinners carry the risk of causing serious bleeding. In these cases, the drug works too well and a patient cannot stop bleeding from minor injuries, risking death.

This can include internal injuries like gastrointestinal bleeding or pulmonary bleeding. However, Xarelto may have some risks not found in older anticoagulants.

Older anticoagulants like Warfarin have known reversal agents. This means that if a patient starts having a gastrointestinal bleeding or pulmonary bleeding, doctors can give the patient a second drug that effectively turns off the anticoagulant. This allows patients to stop bleeding.

Xarelto has no known reversal agent. Along similar lines, older drugs like Warfarin come with the recommendation that doctors do regular blood tests to see how well the drug is working. The makers of Xarelto market the drug as not needing blood tests, though new research strongly supports the idea of blood testing for Xarelto patients.

The Xarelto Bleeding Lawsuit MDL is In Re: Xarelto (Rivaroxaban) Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2592, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.