Pradaxa Lawsuit Information

Pradaxa® was approved by the FDA in 2010 as an anticoagulant, a drug used for the prevention of blood clots in patients prone to stroke.  Blood clotting is a normal occurrence, and is the process by which your body stops bleeding when you are cut.  Sometimes, however, a blood clot can form in a blood vessel, move to a vital organ, and form a blockage, or “embolism.”  If an embolism occurs in or near one’s heart, one may have a heart attack.  If an embolism occurs in the brain, one may have a stroke.  Needless to say, both heart attack and stroke are very serious, often life-threatening conditions.

To prevent blood clots, Pradaxa® acts to thin the blood by attaching to a molecule in the blood called thrombin, “the blood’s central clotting agent.”[1]  When Pradaxa® attaches to thrombin molecules in the blood, thrombin can no longer easily form clots, thus decreasing the likelihood a clot will form.

Since 2010, thousands of people in Europe and the United States have been using Pradaxa® for that very purpose with a high rate of success.  However, some people experience side effects from Pradaxa® use that can be more dangerous than the ailments Pradaxa® aims to alleviate.  These side effects include fatal bleeding, heart attack, and acute coronary syndrome – all of which can be life-threatening.

Pradaxa® and Heart Attack

Recently, research published in The New England Journal of Medicine has confirmed a higher risk for heart attack in patients using Pradaxa® compared with other anticoagulants,[2] and an article published in Archives of Internal Medicine has shown that use of Pradaxa® raises risk for heart attack by more than 33% as compared to users of other anticoagulant drugs.[3]

Pradaxa Heart Attack Lawsuits

The most serious complication of Pradaxa® use is heart attack. Though the manufacturer of Pradaxa® — Boehringer Ingelheim – purports that heart attacks caused by Praxada® are rare, medical research such as that cited above suggests otherwise.

Boehringer Ingelheim has a legal obligation to adequately warn users of its products of the complications associated with its products, and of likelihood that those complications will occur.  As it seems clear that the likelihood Praxada® will produce a heart attack is higher than that reported by the manufacturer, people who used Pradaxa® and suffered a heart attack may be eligible to file a Praxada® lawsuit.

More Information on Pradaxa®

If you have a question about Pradaxa® that isn’t answered here, feel free to give my office a call at (855) 452 – 5529 or e-mail me at justinian@dangerousdrugs.us.

Also, every post we’ve written about Pradaxa is available here.