A federal judge has streamlined the way plaintiffs can file suit against Sanofi-Aventis in a Taxotere permanent hair loss litigation.

Taxotere (docetaxel) is a taxane-based chemotherapy drug, a high potency treatment that was promoted as more effective in treating breast cancer than its lower potency competitor Taxol.

U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt has instructed the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee to draft a master complaint by March 31, 2017. Each subsequent plaintiff will then be allowed to file their claim through a short form complaint that includes allegations specific to that plaintiff.

Use of a short form complaint in the Taxotere permanent hair loss litigation will prevent duplicative discovery into the issues common to most women’s claims. By consolidating these Taxotere lawsuits, conflicting pretrial rulings from a variety of judges also will be avoided.

After a master complaint is filed by March 31, future cases will use the short form complaint. Any plaintiff that has a Taxotere lawsuit already pending in the multidistrict legislation will need to file an amended short form complaint by May 31.

Taxotere permanent hair loss litigation currently consists of cases that have been centralized as part of a federal multidistrict litigation (MDL) before Judge Engelhardt in the Eastern District of Louisiana.

Taxotere Permanent Hair Loss Litigation Claims

Hundreds of Taxotere lawsuits pending against Sanofi-Aventis include similar claims that women suffered permanent, disfiguring hair loss after being treated with Taxotere. The drug’s manufacturer is accused of not sharing information about the risks of permanent hair loss with U.S. doctors or with the public.

Taxotere was advertised as more effective and convenient than competing chemotherapy treatments. Taxotere’s treatment plan is once every three weeks rather than weekly, a fact that appealed to many patients. Taxotere is more toxic, but not more effective, claim the plaintiffs.

While hair loss is a known side effect of most chemotherapy treatments, such hair loss is normally short-term. Hair generally grows back once treatments cease.

For women, permanent hair loss is more than skin-deep. Women report anxiety related to their body image, sexuality and self-esteem. Many women are unable to resume working because of depression and being self-conscious in the workplace.

These plaintiffs claim the drug maker knew from a study in the 1990s that more than nine percent of women who used Taxotere suffered permanent hair loss.

More recently, a 2012 study published in the Annals of Oncology examined hair loss in 20 patients who had received Taxotere treatments. The patients all showed hair loss within two weeks of the first Taxotere treatment. Hair loss persisted in spite of a number of treatments designed to instigate hair growth.

The women indicated “significant impairment” of their quality of life and nearly 40 percent claimed “severe” impairment. Scarves or wigs were used by 70 percent of the women who wanted to cover their heads.

Not only the hair on their heads is missing. The women report having no eyelashes, eyebrows or body hair left.

Plaintiffs in the Taxotere permanent hair loss litigation say they did not expect their chemotherapy hair loss would be permanent. They claim Aventis-Sanofi withheld information about the risk of permanent hair loss from U.S. women at the same time it was warning women in other countries about that risk.