Drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim (Boehringer) announced that it would attempt to settle nearly 4,000 Pradaxa product liability lawsuits in the United States. Though the company announced it would offer to settle the cases in their entirety for $650 million, they did not admit that Pradaxa, the blood thinner, was in fact dangerous.
Bloomberg reports that since Pradaxa was approved in 2010, there have been reports and investigations of bleeding complications attributed to the blood thinner. According to Bloomberg, public documents released during discovery revealed that Boehringer personnel believed that the studies used to clear the drug under FDA regulations may not have accurately reflected the drug's ability to cause fatal bleeding.
In the statement released by Boehringer on May 28, 2014, Andreas Neumann, Head of the Legal Department and General Counsel at Boehringer, stated that the settlement was not an admission of wrong doing. We continue to stand resolutely behind Pradaxa and believed from the outset that the plaintiffs claims lacked any merit, Neumann said.
Though the drugmaker is settling, the company continues to support the safety of Pradaxa and attributed the thousands of claims to the U.S. litigation system. The U.S. litigation system is described by some as a business where lawyers run advertising campaigns to find clients, Neumann stated. This marked distrust of the U.S. legal system seems to have spurred Boehringer's willingness to settle all of the pending U.S. claims.
As recently as December 2013, Boehringer was fined nearly $1 million for failing to save evidence and documents related to Pradaxa. With the $650 million settlement offer, Boehringer hopes to successfully avoid the hassles and expenses associated with ongoing litigation battles in multiple U.S. jurisdictions. If all of the claimants accept the settlement, the combined settlement will resolve nearly 4,000 individual claims and leave Boehringer free of the uncertainty of U.S. judges and juries.
To learn more about this proposed settlement, call a personal injury lawyer at Greg Coleman Law at (865) 247-0080 or fill out the Free Case Evaluation contact form. We are your advocates. If we do not win we will not get paid.
