A Xarelto bleeding lawsuit was filed against Janssen Pharmaceuticals by two brothers who allege their father died after taking Xarelto.

Plaintiffs Harry and Joseph Griggs are the sons of Charles Griggs. According to their Xarelto lawsuit, their father was prescribed Xarelto in May 2013 and took it until August 2013. That’s when their father suffered “life-threatening bleeding … and was caused to sustain severe and permanent personal injuries, pain, suffering, and emotional distress,” according to their Xarelto lawsuit.

Then, “as a result of the foregoing,” their father suddenly died on Dec. 6, 2013.

According to their Xarelto lawsuit, “Defendants negligently and improperly failed to perform sufficient tests, if any, on humans using Xarelto during clinical trials, forcing Plaintiff-decedent, and Plaintiff-decedent’s physicians, hospitals, and/or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to rely on safety information that applies to other non-valvular atrial fibrillation treatment and DVT/PE treatment and prophylaxis, which does not entirely and/or necessarily apply to Xarelto whatsoever.”

The Griggs’ Xarelto lawsuit claims include negligence, strict products liability, breach of express and implied warranties, fraudulent misrepresentation, fraudulent concealment, negligent misrepresentation, fraud and deceit and the wrongful death of their father.

The Xarelto Lawsuit is Harry and Joseph Griggs and the Estate of Charles Griggs v. Janssen Pharmaceuticals, et al., Case No. 14-cv-04841, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Knowledge is Power

The lack of sufficient warning and false marketing sit at the heart of many Xarelto lawsuits.

Janssen spent significant money in promoting Xarelto, spending at least $11 million in 2013 alone on advertising in journals targeted at prescribers and consumers in the United States. The marketing paid off.

During 2012, Xarelto garnered approximately $658 million in sales worldwide, but in 2013 it broke the $1 billion threshold, “blockbuster” status in the pharmaceutical industry. However, in all of this advertising, the risks were allegedly minimized.

In the case of the Griggs’ lawsuit, the plaintiffs say that prior to giving their father a prescription for Xarelto, his prescribing physician “received promotional materials and information from sales representatives of Defendants that Xarelto was just as effective as warfarin in reducing strokes in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation, as well as preventing DVT/PE in patients with prior history of DVT/PE or undergoing hip or knee replacement surgery, and was more convenient, without also adequately informing prescribing physicians that there was no reversal agent that could stop or control bleeding in patients taking Xarelto.” If their father and his doctor had known of the risks, they say he could have chosen a different medication.

What is Xarelto?

Xarelto (rivaroxaban) is part of a new class of anticoagulation therapy drugs that are supposedly easier to use and require less monitoring than their predecessor Coumadin (warfarin). Manufactured by Janssen, it has had a number of adverse bleeding events reported to the FDA. By the end of the first quarter of 2012 alone, over 121 Xarelto bleeding reports had been filed.

Bleeding risks are not unique to blood thinners, but prior to the new drugs, there has always been a way to stop this effect. For example, doctors can use Vitamin K to stop internal bleeding from Coumadin. Xarelto, however, like Pradaxa, does not have a reversal agent.

Xarelto is marketed as a drug that doesn’t need supervision and that’s easy for a patient to use, but this isn’t proving to be the case. With no prescribed way to stop the bleeding brought on by Xarelto, doctors have to improvise treatments to stop hemorrhaging. While off-the-cuff treatments can help in the moment, they have, according to plaintiffs and experts, led to confusion over appropriate treatment, as well as ended with serious injuries and death.