The court overseeing the federal AndroGel litigation has amended the case management order governing selection for the upcoming bellwether trials, which may provide insight into how juries will rule in similar testosterone product lawsuits.

In the ongoing MDL involving AndroGel and other low-t treatment drugs, AbbVie recently asked Judge Matthew Kennelly to amend the schedule for choosing bellwether cases for trial, specifically noting that they wished to “bifurcate” or separate expert discovery and summary judgment.

Summary judgment would have involved causation and other relevant issues. Kennelly decided that doing so would not be fair and reasonable to both parties, although he did extend the general process for choosing bellwether cases.

While a previous case management order suggested that testosterone products cases should start going to trial in 2016, the judge is now requiring the parties to submit a proposal for the selection process by Aug. 10.

These testosterone products cases are going to be split into two categories: blood clot cases involving thromboembolism or deep vein thrombosis and heart attack cases. If all goes to plan, a final bellwether selection should be made by the end of August.

On Oct. 31, 2016 the parties are expected to select eight AndroGel cases dealing with the two categories of injuries.

Testosterone Products Litigation

AndroGel and other low-t therapy drugs have been extremely profitable for AbbVie and other testosterone products manufacturers. However, men taking the testosterone therapy were often faced with side effects including heart attack, stroke, pulmonary embolism, and deep vein thrombosis.

The thrust of these testosterone product lawsuits is that men and doctors were not adequately warned about these side effects and that the drugs’ manufacturers wrongly marketed their testosterone products as safe and effective treatments for lowered sex drive, fatigue and other age-related symptoms, even though they were never approved for this use.

Due to the similarity of testosterone products allegations, a low-t drug MDL (multidistrict litigation) was created in June 2014. Over 1,500 testosterone product lawsuits have been filed in the Northern District of Illinois.

Testosterone product lawsuits began being filed in January 2014, shortly after the FDA announced it was investigating a link between testosterone therapy drugs and cardiovascular side effects.

The agency has since ordered manufacturers of prescription testosterone products to update their products’ labeling with information about an increased risk of heart attack and stroke, and to revise verbiage pertaining to approved indications to make it clear that testosterone hasn’t been proven safe for treating age-related symptoms.

The Testosterone Products MDL is In re: Testosterone Replacement Therapy Product Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2545, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.