Pradaxa suits will be settled for about $650M, drugmaker says
German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim has announced it will pay about $650 million to settle lawsuits targeting its blood thinning drug Pradaxa.
Plaintiffs had claimed the company did not provide sufficient warning about the risk of severe bleeding and death for patients who take Pradaxa. The company said the settlement will resolve about 4,000 claims, report Reuters, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Bloomberg News.
Boehringer Ingelheim USA general counsel Desiree Ralls-Morrison said in a statement that the company “believed from the outset that the plaintiffs’ claims lacked merit” and it settled “to avoid the distraction and uncertainty of lengthy litigation.”
The deal would resolve more than 2,500 Pradaxa suits consolidated before U.S. District Judge David Herndon in East St. Louis, Illinois, and an additional 1,500 suits in state courts in Illinois, Connecticut, California and Delaware, Bloomberg says.
In December, Herndon sanctioned Boehringer nearly $1 million and switched depositions from Germany to the United States because the company failed to preserve files, the Madison St.-Clair Record reported in February. In January, a federal appeals court did not disturb the monetary sanctions but said the judge had no authority to move the depositions.
Prior coverage:
New York Times: “New Emails in Pradaxa Case Show Concern Over Profit”
