First Taxotere Bellwether Trial Postponed To September 2019

First Taxotere Bellwether Trial Postponed To September 2019

Introduction

In a case management order issued on March 22, U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo, presiding over all Taxotere hair loss lawsuits, indicated that the start of the first bellwether trial was delayed until September 16, 2019.

The first five bellwether cases were scheduled to go before the jury on May 13, 2019, and additional cases were scheduled for September 16, 2019; January 27, 2020; May 11, 2020; and September 14, 2020. Taxotere manufacturer Sanofi-Aventis faces some 12,000 product liability claims that it failed to warn about the risks of hair loss from its breast cancer drug, Taxotere, which is not the case with other, equally effective, breast cancer treatments. Though hair loss is a possible side effect of chemotherapy, the lawsuits blamed Sanofi-Aventis of providing misleading information that the patient's hair would regrow after the treatment. However, Taxotere has been reported to cause permanent thinning and balding even long after the treatments are over.

Taxotere lawsuits were centralized in the Eastern District of Louisiana, as part of a federal Multidistrict Litigation, or MDL (MDL No. 2740; In Re: Taxotere (Docetaxel) Products Liability Litigation).