An Alabama woman has filed a Taxotere permanent alopecia lawsuit against the drug maker Sanofi-Aventis, claiming she has suffered long lasting damages from taking their chemotherapy drug.

Plaintiff Gloria M., a resident of Alabama, claims that she has experienced disfiguring permanent alopecia that began after she began taking Taxotere, generically known as docetaxel.

She is joining her Taxotere permanent alopecia lawsuit to the larger multidistrict litigation (MDL) that is occurring in Louisiana.

An MDL is a special legal procedure that attempts to speed up the process when there are multiple complex cases, including product liability cases, involved. Discovery and pretrial proceedings are consolidated so that the whole process can be streamlined.

Because many women, like Gloria, have filed Taxotere permanent alopecia lawsuits, an MDL was created. This MDL names defendants Sanofi-Aventis and other related companies that may have had a hand in the development, sale and marketing of Taxotere chemotherapy drug.

This MDL is No. 2740 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

Chemotherapy Impact

Taxotere permanent alopecia has been reported by many women after taking the chemotherapy drug. While hair is commonly lost during chemotherapy treatment for cancer, patients expect hair to grow back.

Chemotherapy drugs target rapidly growing cells in order to keep cancer cells from reproducing. However, hair cells are also fast growing cells, which is why many patients’ hair falls out during chemotherapy treatment.

Taxotere has been approved to treat breast cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer, and head and neck cancer.

Not too long ago, at the end of 2015, Taxotere drug maker Sanofi-Aventis revised the warning label on Taxotere to reflect the fact that Taxotere permanent alopecia is a potential side effect from taking the drug.

Others in the MDL claim that the makers of Taxotere continued to publicize the “superior efficacy” of the drug even though they knew that it was not any more effective than other competing drugs in its class.

The Taxotere permanent alopecia MDL also claims that the “defendants knew or should have known that the rate of permanent alopecia related to Taxotere was far greater than other products available to treat the same condition as the defendants’ product.”

Taxotere permanent alopecia is a disfiguring condition, the MDL states, and women who experience the permanent hair loss also suffer from mental anguish, psychological harm and economic damages.

Gloria is bringing forth claims of failure to warn, strict products liability for misrepresentation, negligence, negligent misrepresentation, fraudulent misrepresentation, fraudulent concealment, fraud and deceit, and breach of express warranty.

Gloria’s Taxotere Permanent Alopecia Lawsuit is joining MDL 2740. Her lawsuit is Case No. 2:17-cv-05358-KDE-MBN in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.