According To Bayer 2012 Annual Report, More Than 3200 Blood Clot Claims Remain Unsettled And Additional Lawsuits Are Anticipated By Drug Company
(Posted by Tom Lamb at DrugInjuryWatch.com)
To start, by my review, there is only one single mention of "Beyaz" in the entire Bayer 2012 Annual Report and none of "Safyral", although these are two of the drug company's newer drospirenone-containing oral contraceptive pills.
A close read of that corporate Form 10-K SEC filing, however, suggests that Bayer apparently is, in fact, counting Beyaz and Safyral lawsuits among the 10,000 pending filed lawsuits and the 1,200 asserted claims that have not been filed (probably its tolling-agreement cases total) as of February 12, 2013.
From the Yasmin™ / YAZ™ part of the Product-Related Litigation section of the drug company's most recent Annual Report, which was filed in late February 2013:
Claimants allege that they have suffered personal injuries, some of them fatal, from the use of Bayer’s drospirenone-containing oral contraceptive products such as Yasmin™ and / or YAZ™ or from the use of Ocella™ and / or Gianvi™, generic versions of Yasmin™ and YAZ™, respectively, marketed by Barr Laboratories, Inc. in the United States. Claimants seek compensatory and punitive damages, claiming, in particular, that Bayer knew, or should have known, of the alleged risks and should be held liable for having failed to disclose them or adequately warn users. [emphasis added]
Stepping back from that specific issue, let's take a look at the so-called Bayer settlement program which began in early 2012. Bayer has thus far acknowledged the existence of about 8000 claims for blood clot-related side effects -- e.g., deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and/or pulmonary embolism (PE) -- arising from the use of its drospirenone (DRSP) birth control pills, with about 60 percent of those cases having been settled by the drug company to date.
______________________________________________________________________________
YAZ/Yasmin/Ocella/Gianvi/Beyaz/Safyral
Free Case Evaluation
Strictly Confidential, No Obligation.
______________________________________________________________________________
Again, from the Bayer 2012 Annual Report:
As of February 12, 2013, Bayer had reached agreements, without admission of liability, to settle the claims of approximately 4,800 claimants in the U.S. for a total amount of about US$1 billion. Bayer is only settling claims in the U.S. for venous clot injuries (deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism) after a case-specific analysis of medical records on a rolling basis. Such injuries are alleged by about 3,200 of the pending unsettled claimants.
Concerning how far Bayer has come with its YAZ / Yasmin settlement program, as we reported in our article last year about the Bayer 2011 Annual Report, there were settlement agreements in just 70 cases as of mid-February 2012.
But as pointed out by the drug company in both its 2011 and 2012 Annual Reports, "Additional lawsuits are anticipated." And some of those newly filed cases will include DVT and PE cases involving women using Beyaz or Safyral.
In the end, we expect that those Beyaz and Safyral blood clot claims will be settled by Bayer eventually -- even if those particular DRSP birth control cases are not being mentioned by the drug company to the same extent that the YAZ, Yasmin, Ocella, and Gianvi claims have been to this point in time.
______________________________________________________________________________DrugInjuryLaw.com: Legal Information And News About Prescription Drug Side Effects (All website content by attorney Tom Lamb)
Drug Injury Case Evaluation - Free & Confidential (Review done by attorney Tom Lamb)