Plaintiff Louis D., a resident of Nevada, has filed a Xarelto hemorrhage lawsuit against Janssen Pharmaceuticals, the makers of the anticoagulant drug.

According to the Xarelto lawsuit, plaintiff Louis D. had ingested Xarelto between October 2013 and August 2015. He suffered a “large intraventricular hemorrhage” on Aug. 2, 2015.

Louis alleges that this hemorrhage was the direct result of him taking Xarelto.

The Xarelto hemorrhage lawsuit is part of the multidistrict litigation currently in progress against Janssen Pharmaceuticals in a Louisiana federal court. Defendant Janssen Pharmaceuticals is a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals and other related companies are also named as defendants.

Xarelto Hemorrhage Lawsuit Allegations

Xarelto is a new class of anticoagulant medication that helps treat and prevent the formation of blood clots from appearing in patients for a variety of reasons. However, contentions have been made that although there are some benefits to some patients taking the medication, others have suffered unsurmountable adverse side effects from taking Xarelto.

According to the comlaint, Xarelto was initially approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to prevent heart attacks and strokes from occurring in patients who suffer from atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation is a condition in which the heart beats with an irregular rhythm. The irregularity may give blood a chance to pool within the circulatory system. When that happens, blood clots may form, putting the patient at risk for conditions like stroke or deep vein thrombosis.

Xarelto is specifically prescribed to patients to prevent the formation of deep vein thrombosis, the formation of a blood clot in the body’s lower extremity, and pulmonary embolism, the formation of blood in the lungs. Xarelto is also used to prevent the formation of blood clots from forming in patients who are undergoing major surgeries such as a knee or hip replacement surgery.

According to required U.S. Food and Drug Administration procedures, Xarelto was required to undergo clinical studies that demonstrated its safety and efficacy to the FDA. However, according to the Xarelto hemorrhage lawsuit, these clinical studies were faulty in nature and not an accurate representation to the proposed risks involved in being prescribed the medication.

According to the Xarelto Hemorrhage lawsuit, one such study is the ROCKET AF study. The study had discovered that Xarelto was not inferior to its anticoagulant counterpart, warfarin, and in fact it possessed similar risks in bleeding.

As reported in Louis’s Xarelto lawsuit, the ROCKET AF study found that “bleeding from gastrointestinal sites, including upper, lower, and rectal sites, occurred more frequently in the rivaroxaban [Xarelto] group, as did bleeding that led to a drop in the hemoglobin level or bleeding that required transfusion.”

In another study, termed the EINSTEIN study, results allegedly showed that not only was Xarelto not inferior to Warfarin, but that there were severe adverse health effects involved in taking Xarelto that required pateints to permanently discontinue taking the anticoagulant or caused them to require long-term hospitalized care.

A different study, termed the RECORD study, further reported that patients prescribed Xarelto were reported to have more frequent bleeding events severe enough to require a blood transfusion.

The Xarelto Hemorrhage Lawsuit is Case No. 2:17-cv-06611-EEF-MBN, and is part of the Xarelto MDL No. 2592, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.