You never expected the medicine you take for heartburn to cause you to go into kidney failure, requiring dialysis or an organ transplant.
Yet that’s what happened, to you and to thousands of others. More than 5,000 patients have suffered kidney damage linked to drugs like Prilosec.
You can’t let AstraZeneca, the company that manufactures Prilosec, get away with robbing you of your health. The harm you’ve suffered is serious. Life after kidney failure will never be the same.
Console and Associates has 25 years of experience handling personal injury claims. Over that time, we’ve worked with law firms across the country, including those that handle Prilosec claims. If we cannot handle a claim, our goal is to connect you with an experienced attorney who can. If you suffered chronic kidney disease after taking Prilosec, call today. We’ll ask you a few questions so that we can put you in touch with the right attorney.
Kidney disease can have a substantial impact on your life.
Prilosec is just one of the acid reflux drugs linked to kidney failure. Research has shown that the entire class of heartburn drugs known as proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) is associated with an increased risk of kidney disease and injury. In fact, taking PPIs like Prilosec raises your risk of developing chronic kidney disease by 20 percent to 50 percent, the JAMA Internal Medicine journal reported.
You might have the grounds for a PPI lawsuit if you took Prilosec and developed:
If your kidney disease progresses too far, your kidneys may stop working. Many of the patients now pursuing Prilosec lawsuits have lost kidney function so much that they now need dialysis or a kidney transplant.
Sadly, some patients with severe kidney damage lose their lives. Families have legal rights when a loved one who took PPI heartburn medication dies from a condition that involves the loss of kidney function.
PPIs change how your body works. That’s how they relieve heartburn in the first place. These drugs interfere with the proton pumps that produce stomach acid in the body. The result is less corrosive stomach acid making its way up the esophagus or eating through the lining of the stomach.
Unfortunately, medicines don’t just affect the part of the body that they are intended to alter. In the case of PPIs, the drugs can also affect the function of your kidneys. And when the damage is so severe that it reduces your kidney function significantly, the damage can be permanent.
Coping with kidney damage from taking Prilosec could mean a lifetime of medical treatment. On the legal side of things, there’s a solution for the consequences of your injury that are financial rather than physical: pursuing a Prilosec side effects lawsuit.
You might wonder if you can join in on a Prilosec class action lawsuit. There are ongoing claims against the makers of many proton pump. It may not be too late to file your own claim.
The many different PPI medications on the market all work in the same way. They are all associated with the same risks of kidney damage. So the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation announced in 2017 that all federally-filed kidney damage lawsuits against PPI manufacturers would be consolidated in the U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey.
Consolidating lawsuits into multidistrict litigation (MDL) streamlines the process of resolving these claims. When cases share similar fact patterns, like the connection between PPI medications and kidney damage, combining them as MDL speeds up the lawsuit process.
Don’t wait! Get help for your omeprazole class action lawsuit today.
What kind of settlement can you expect from an omeprazole lawsuit? How much might a jury award you if your claim goes to trial?
Every day, you’re dealing with the consequences of kidney disease. You’re taking medicines or going to dialysis appointments. The medical bills keep arriving, and the costs keep piling up. You may be missing work for your medical treatment, or simply because you are too sick to make it through the workday.
For you, compensation for a proton pump inhibitors lawsuit isn’t just a way of making things right. It’s the money you need to get better, the money your family needs to stay afloat financially during such a difficult time.
Right now, the Prilosec kidney disease lawsuits are still pending. There aren’t yet settlements or jury awards you can look at to figure out how much money you could get for your claim. However, you can look at other factors to get an idea of whether you have an omeprazole lawsuit and how much your case might be worth.
When you pursue a lawsuit against a pharmaceutical company, your claim includes all of the damages you suffered as a result of your injuries.
When your attorney files a claim on your behalf, they look at the true cost of your injuries. This means more than just your medical bills. An experienced attorney seeks a settlement for all relevant damages, including:
Injuries
How much is your kidney damage worth? The type and severity of the kidney injury you sustained play a part in how much money you are entitled to. A patient who develops acute kidney injury but is treated so early that the damage can be cured has less severe damages than one who enters renal failure that cannot be reversed. Patients who must undergo dialysis or require a kidney transplant have some of the highest-value claims.
However, even a treatable kidney injury can result in additional medical bills and health complications. Any patient who developed kidney damage after taking PPIs should discuss their situation with an attorney.
Medical Expenses
The bigger your medical bills, the more money you need to compensate you fully. Hospitalizations, expensive medications, and follow-up care with nephrologists and other specialists can all factor into the value of your lawsuit against Prilosec. After all, you never would have needed this medical care if it wasn’t for the serious side effects of a PPI drug. Again, patients who have to go on dialysis or get transplants may have the highest value claims. The medical costs for these treatments are steep. A single year of hemodialysis costs $90,000. Even if you plan to undergo a transplant, most patients spend three to five years on the waiting list for a kidney. Throughout their wait, they may require dialysis to do what their damaged kidneys can’t do.
The billed charges for a kidney transplant are more than $440,000 on average. Early on in your recovery from a transplant, the medicines needed to keep your body from rejecting the kidney can cost as much as $2,500 per month.
Lost Wages
When you have sustained serious damage to your kidneys, you can get very sick. You might lose out on income because you’re not healthy enough to work right now. If you undergo a kidney transplant, you could be out of work for six weeks to a few months while you recover. Even if you don’t undergo surgery, going to dialysis can take up as much time each week as a part-time job. You may find that you have to reduce your work hours to fit in the treatment you need. You couldn’t have planned for this sort of financial burden. The last thing you need is to face economic hardship due to loss of income while you’re going through this medical ordeal. Our kidney disease lawyers will get you compensation for all of your damages, including lost income.
Future Care
With early detection and prompt treatment, some patients will make a full recovery from kidney disease. However, for many patients, kidney damage is incurable. If you will need future care long-term management of kidney disease, like years of dialysis treatments or anti-rejection medication for a transplant, then your Prilosec lawsuit settlement needs to cover those costs, too. We’ll fight to make sure you get the money you need to not only pay your existing bills but also to afford the treatment you will need for the rest of your life.
Pain and Suffering
Your kidney injury has changed everything. When you feel too sick to go about your life or have to plan your life around dialysis, or must undergo major surgery, of course, you’re suffering. All of this pain could have possibly been avoided if only you hadn’t taken Prilosec. It’s so frustrating to think about how different things could have, and should have, been. We’ll make sure that your settlement takes into account factors like the additional pain you have been put through and your diminished quality of life.
No Prilosec kidney disease lawsuits have been resolved at this time. But AstraZeneca and other PPI manufacturers have paid out a lot of money, more than $100 billion, in other claims against them.
Disclaimer: Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances.
$55 Million | Off-Label Advertising
A PPI called Protonix was approved as a short-term treatment for a condition called erosive esophagitis, which is one form of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). However, Pfizer, the manufacturer of Protonix, was sued for promoting the medication for off-label use as a treatment of other (more common) forms of GERD.
Doctors can legally prescribe medications for off-label uses, but pharmaceutical companies can’t legally advertise their drugs for uses they haven’t been approved for. Pfizer ended up settling the lawsuit against the company for $55 million in 2012.
$24 Million | Paying Off the Competition
When medication patents run out, other companies are permitted to begin making generic forms of these drugs. Some pharmaceutical companies have faced serious consequences for trying to delay the production of generics in order to hold on to the profits of having a monopoly for a little longer.
Generic pharmaceutical manufacturer Teva Pharmaceuticals was, essentially, paid off by AstraZeneca to delay the production of generic forms of the company’s top-selling PPI. In 2015, Teva Pharmaceuticals agreed to pay $24 million to settle the class-action lawsuit.
$20 Million | Deceptive Advertising
When Prilosec manufacturer AstraZeneca developed a new PPI, the company boosted sales of the new drug by launching advertising campaigns that, it was later found, misled consumers by exaggerating the differences between Prilosec and Nexium. The new drug makes the company even more money than formerly top-selling Prilosec did.
AstraZeneca ended up paying $20 million to settle a lawsuit over its misleading advertising campaign.
$7.9 Million | Kickbacks to Pharmacy Benefit Managers
When it comes to getting your medications, your options may be limited by your health insurance. Pharmaceutical companies can take advantage of this fact.
AstraZeneca was alleged to have paid kickbacks to Medco Health Solutions, a pharmacy benefits management company that controlled medication access for 65 million Americans, for making Nexium the only PPI medication covered. The government sued AstraZeneca over these allegations, and the pharmaceutical company ended up paying $7.9 million to settle the lawsuit in 2015.
Prilosec Sales
For almost 30 years, AstraZeneca has raked in lucrative profits from selling medications like Prilosec. Prilosec was the first PPI launched in the United States. From 1989 through the early 2000s, the drug brought in $26 billion in revenue. At that time, it was one of the top-selling drugs of all time, according to Forbes.
What happened? Around the same time Prilosec’s patent expired, allowing for generic versions of the profitable drug, the company released a new heartburn drug. Nexium has an almost identical active ingredient, Forbes reported, along with a very similar set of side effects that includes kidney damage – and it, too, has become a blockbuster drug, accounting for nearly $6 billion in sales annually.
You’re struggling to afford the sky-high costs of dialysis or a kidney transplant. Your family is trying to make ends meet despite the loss of income and rising medical bills. But the drugmaker that caused all of this is still pulling in the profits of both Nexium and Prilosec. This isn’t fair. The pharmaceutical company that created the heartburn medications that put your health at risk should be the one facing the consequences, not you.
It’s time to put your family and your quality of life first. It’s time to move forward with your omeprazole class action lawsuit.
Even without the obstacles of trying to recover from kidney damage, a Prilosec side effects lawsuit isn’t something you can handle on your own. When you’re facing off against a pharmaceutical giant like AstraZeneca, you know that your opponent has plenty of resources to fight to keep its profits. Winning a pharmaceutical injury lawsuit takes a lot of time and work, plenty of thorough investigation, and years of experience navigating the legal system.
If you developed a chronic kidney condition after using Prilosec, you should speak with an attorney who has experience handling these types of claims. If you don’t know an attorney who can help, call us. After more than 25 years, we’ve worked with attorneys across the country and, after asking you a few brief questions, we can connect you with an attorney who’s already handling many omeprazole lawsuits like yours.
