Canadian Xarelto Lawsuits Continue to Emerge

Calgary, ABWhile lawsuits pertaining to Xarelto Bleedout have been steadily increasing in the United States, similar lawsuits have been coming to the fore in other jurisdictions as well. To that end, a Xarelto lawsuit filed in Calgary last February and another that was expected to be filed in Ontario are representative of the risk inherent with the new-age anticoagulant that successfully reached the market without provision of a ready antidote.

According to the Calgary Sun (2/13/15), the lead plaintiff in the Canadian class action based in Calgary is Betty Samson, who is reported to have come very close to suffering a heart attack in September 2012 after experiencing internal bleeding while on Xarelto.

“They advised her that Xarelto was the cause of her hemorrhaging and that, unlike other anticoagulants such as Warfarin, there was no way to reverse the anticoagulant effects of Xarelto.”

As of February of last year, Health Canada - the Canadian counterpart to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) - had logged some 1,100 adverse effects related to Xarelto, according to the Xarelto Side Effects class action, stating further: “A dozen of those adverse events registered with Health Canada indicated that death had resulted from Xarelto,” the lawsuit says.

Attorneys close to the Canadian Xarelto file said at the time they were expecting a lawsuit on behalf of an 83-year-old woman from Ontario who is alleged to have bled to death in the shower, in November 2013.

Akin to US-based Xarelto Bleeding Issue lawsuits, the Canadian cases allege that defendants involved in the manufacture and marketing of Xarelto succeeded in bringing Rivaroxaban (Xarelto) to market without a ready means to reverse its blood thinning properties in the event of a hemorrhage or other Xarelto Bleeding complications.

One of two heirs to the Coumadin kingdom, Xarelto appeared to meet the long-held wish lists of doctors and patients alike who had been hoping for an effective blood thinner that did not require the stringent monitoring of blood and diet that has always been a part of the warfarin (Coumadin) regimen in order to achieve optimum blood thinning without tipping the scales toward uncontrollable bleeding. Were a hemorrhage to occur, doctors knew they had the chance to reverse - or at the very least minimize - a bleeding issue with an infusion of vitamin K, the latter acting to reverse the thinning properties of warfarin.

In contrast, Xarelto was brought to market amidst claims that stringent monitoring was not required - at least to the same degree as that associated with warfarin. Needless to say, patients and their health care practitioners snapped up Xarelto in spades.

Plaintiffs now say had they known Xarelto was brought to market ahead of an available reversing agent or antidote, they would have stayed with warfarin. Plaintiffs also now allege that Bayer was negligent in promoting Xarelto as requiring less monitoring, when a reversing agent was not yet available to help with Xarelto Bleeding Complications.