Product Liability Lawyer Blog
According to a recent article from Australia, at least 30,000 people in the country have been put at serious risks for internal bleeding after taking Pradaxa. Claims are being made that Boehringer Ingelheim, the drugmaker, was more concerned with marketing and making money than patient safety and failed to warn users of this known danger or methods to minimize the risk of internal bleeding.
As your Boston Pradaxa attorneys understand, the drug is intended to be a blood thinner to minimize the risk of strokes, heart disease, and blood clot related illness. Pradaxa and another new blood thinner, Xarelto, were hailed as major advances in blood thinning medications and were marketed as a better alternative to the traditional blood thinner, warfarin.
The company’s marketing claimed that the advantage of Pradaxa over warfarin was that patients did not need regular blood monitoring. The problem is that the drug companies were apparently aware of the fact that regular blood monitoring would reduce the risk that Pradaxa patients would suffer internal bleeding and brain hemorrhaging. The drug company did not want to hurt windfall profits they were reaping from Pradaxa sales and worried that fewer people would choose the drug over warfarin if they knew this information.
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