On October 17, 2018, Boehringer Ingelheim was hit with a $1.25 million verdict by a federal jury in Huntington, West Virginia, awarding a family of a deceased woman who suffered gastrointestinal bleeding due to the company's blood thinner drug Pradaxa.
The verdict included $250,000 in compensatory damages and $1,000,000 more in punitive damages to be paid by Boehringer Ingelheim for their wanton and willful acts in marketing their blood thinner drug. This is the first time the German drugmaker was held liable for misrepresenting the health hazards of Pradaxa. The pharmaceutical company won the earlier three trials for similar claims between 2016 and 2018.
The U.S. FDA approved drug has been reported to cause serious injuries and gastrointestinal bleeding, heart attack, stroke, brain hemorrhage, kidney bleeding, and death. In December 2017, Judge Herndon, who overlooked Pradaxa class action lawsuits, recommended shutdown of the multidistrict litigation (MDL No. 2385) after dismissing pending cases in the docket. The next bellwether trial will commence in February 2019.
