Bayer is slowly but surely settling lawsuits over its bleeding drug Trasylol. The company has agreed to settlement deals in about 200 of 2,000 pending cases, The Legal Intelligencer reports. Average settlements are estimated at $400,000 to $510,000, but some settlement terms remain confidential.
Trasylol, used to control bleeding during heart surgery, has been linked with kidney problems and heart trouble. Bayer suspended marketing of the drug in 2007 after a Canadian study suggested that the drug may increase the risk of death; that research followed other studies associating the drug with kidney failure, heart attack, stroke or death.
The drugmaker has been settling cases one at a time, lawyers said, rather than working on a global settlement with a fund allocated to the various patients. "The cases involve people with different medical histories," Bayer spokeswoman Tracy Funk tells the Intelligencer. "After consideration of the facts of each individual case, Bayer will consider the option of settling individual lawsuits, without admission of liability, on a case-by-case basis."
- read the Intelligencer piece