JPML Sends Eliquis Cases to MDL Docket in New York

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A coordinated federal docket will be established in New York for lawsuits targeting the makers of Eliquis, a so-called “breakthrough” anticoagulant that plaintiffs say can cause life-threatening and irreversible bleeding.

In an order issued Feb. 7, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation rejected informal coordination as the preferred alternative to MDL centralization, an argument posited by the plaintiffs in response to defendants Bristol-Myers Squibb’s and Pfizer’s motion to transfer and consolidate the actions.

The plaintiffs argued that the relatively small number of involved counsel, as well as certain procedural differences among the actions, favored informal coordination.

Defendants …