Taxotere is the brand name for the generic drug docetaxel, manufactured by Sanofi-Aventis. It’s one of a group of medications called taxanes, which work by interfering with cancer cells’ ability to divide.

Since Taxotere was first approved by the FDA in 1996, it has been approved as a treatment for several different types of cancer.

Its usefulness has contributed to significant revenues for Sanofi. Sales peaked at over $3 billion in 2009, after which the company lost patent exclusivity rights.

Taxotere has seen a particular amount of use as a chemotherapy drug for treating breast cancer that has not responded to other types of treatment or that has spread to other parts of the body.

A majority of breast cancer patients are treated with Taxotere at some point during their treatment. With an estimated 3 million women in the United States currently living with breast cancer, the number of those patients who could be treated with Taxotere can run into the millions.

As a side effect, chemotherapy hair loss is not unique to Taxotere. But normally hair grows back after three to six months following the end of chemotherapy.

Some patients who were treated with Taxotere, however, have reported hair loss, or alopecia, that continues long after treatment ends and may be permanent.

Their hair loss may also be widespread such that body hair as well as hair on the head falls out without regrowing.

A few clinical studies have documented hair loss as a Taxotere side effect. In one study published in the Annals of Oncology in 2012, nineteen out of twenty women treated with Taxotere had permanent hair loss, including loss of eyebrows and eyelashes.

Another study funded by Sanofi, Taxotere’s manufacturer, found that over nine percent of study participants suffered hair loss lasting 10 years or more.

Litigating Taxotere Side Effects

One former Taxotere patient, now the plaintiff in a Taxotere lawsuit, says Sanofi concealed information about Taxotere side effects while at the same time aggressively marketing the drug. She believes Sanofi purposely hid the results of clinical studies showing an association between Taxotere and permanent hair loss.

Plaintiff Ami D. says that she never would have agreed to be treated with Taxotere if she had known about the associated risk of chemotherapy hair loss.

Ami notes that hair loss is particularly disfiguring for women. She says that women who lose all their hair after being treated with Taxotere are subject to “significant psychological damage,” in addition to economic harm such as becoming less able or unable to work.

Other women have reported similar experiences with Taxotere, leading to similar embarrassment and emotional distress. They complain that permanent hair loss has left them continuing to look sick long after they completed treatment.

Many of these women say they were not properly informed about the risk of permanent hair loss, nor were they presented with any alternative treatment. For that reason, one Canadian doctor says he gives his patients a choice: they can undergo either four rounds of therapy with Taxotere or twelve rounds with Taxol.

Though Taxol requires more treatment, it carries a much lower risk of permanent hair loss.