As Jef Feeley and Margaret Cronin Fisk report for Bloomberg Businessweek, hundreds of patients who suffered bad side effects from taking Pradaxa to prevent a stroke have sued drug maker Boehringer Ingelheim, which has made more than $1 billion in sales off Pradaxa since bringing the drug to market.
Pradaxa has been marketed as a safe alternative to Coumadin, a blood thinner that the FDA approved for use decades ago. The generic name for the drug Coumadin is “warfarin,” which was approved back in 1954.
Yet, at this time, there is no way to reverse bleeding for patients on Pradaxa as compared to patients on Coumadin, prompting one attorney representing injured patients and their families to say that Pradaxa is a “truly defective drug,” as Feeley and Fisk report.
It’s defective because there’s no antidote. Bleeding, in turn, can become uncontrollable and lead to a patient’s death.
There are cases pending against Boehringer Ingelheim in state and federal courts across the country.
Source: Boehringer Sued by Hundreds Over Bleeding Tied to Pradaxa