Plavix Injury Lawsuits in Federal Court Will Not Be Centralized in MDL

A panel of federal judges has rejected calls for all federal Plavix lawsuits to be consolidated in one court for coordinated handling during pre-trial litigation, meaning that the litigation over internal bleeding, ulcers, heart attacks, strokes and other health problems allegedly caused by the popular blood thinner will proceed as individual cases in various district courts throughout the country.

Last week, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation denied a motion by Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis to centralize the federal Plavix litigation in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. The panel concluded that centralization would not help move the cases through the system faster and would provide no benefit to the parties involved.

There are currently only 12 lawsuits over Plavix pending in the federal court system, with 10 of them already pending before one judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. However, all of those 10 were filed in either 2006 or 2007 and have mostly gone through the discovery process and most pretrial motions. In addition, plaintiffs in those cases are barred from pursuing company documents published after 2007, while other cases brought after that point can use more recent documents in a lawsuit against the company.

All of the Plavix suits allege that the drug makers failed to adequately research their medication or warn about the risk of Plavix side effects, which could increase the risk of serious and potentially life-threatening bleeding, as well as a rare blood disorder known as thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP).

Plavix cases filed at the state court level in New Jersey have already been centralized before one judge. However, the Supreme Court of New Jersey stopped just short of giving Plavix lawsuits a mass tort designation, the state-level equivalent to an MDL. Instead, the cases were all simply assigned to Judge Jessica R. Mayer for centralized case management.

At the time of that decision, there were 40 cases in New Jersey state court, but Plavix lawyers predicted there could be hundreds or thousands of cases filed at the state level against the defendants.

Plavix (clopidogrel) is prescribed to prevent blood platelets from sticking together to form clots. It is often prescribed to reduce the risk of heart attacks, strokes and blood clotting when drug coated stents are used in patients with arteriosclerosis and in other at-risk patients. It is a blockbuster medication, generating more than $6.5 billion in U.S. sales for Bristol Myers Squibb Co. and Sanofi-Aventis in 2010.

Plaintiffs allege that they suffered injuries as a result of their unnecessary use of Plavix, such as gastrointestinal bleeding, severe ulcers and a rare blood disorder known as TTP. Some complaints also allege that Plavix did not provide the promoted benefit of reducing the risk of a heart attack or stroke, raising questions about the effectiveness of Plavix among some users.

In November 2009, the FDA issued a public health advisory warning that side effects of Prilosec may interfere with Plavix effectiveness, increasing the risk of heart attack, death or other injuries for patients.

In March 2010, a Plavix “black box” warning was added to alert patients and healthcare professionals that the anti-clotting drug may not work in some patients due to genetics. The FDA indicated that a genetic test is available to determine whether patients are able to metabolize Plavix efficiently and suggested that doctors should consider another medication for at-risk patients who are confirmed to have the gene variant.