A trial is getting under way this week in Louisiana to determine whether the pharmaceutical giant Sanofi took adequate steps to warn patients and doctors that the chemotherapy drug Taxotere could cause permanent hair loss.
Judge Jane Milazzo will oversee the trial of plaintiff Elizabeth Kahn’s allegations that she did not receive a warning from her oncologists or other caregivers that the breast cancer drug could cause alopecia, or permanent hair loss. Khan, who was treated with the drug in 2009, only found out later through an online search that permanent hair loss was a possible risk of taking the drug, according to an amended complaint filed earlier this year in the Eastern District of Louisiana.
“Defendants … had a duty to both plaintiff directly and her physicians to warn of risks associated with the use of the product, including, but not limited to, permanent disfiguring alopecia,” the complaint states.
The bellwether trial, a test case, is part of multidistrict litigation brought against Sanofi that accuses the drugmaker of aggressively and fraudulently promoting Taxotere to physicians but failing to adequately warn of the product’s potential for severe adverse effects.
A spokesperson for the law firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP, which is representing Sanofi, noted that the court sided with Sanofi in the first bellwether case involving Taxotere in 2019. That verdict in the case of Earnest v. Sanofi Aventis U.S. LLC is being appealed.
In the Kahn case, the plaintiff’s doctor has testified that he would have recommended Taxotere even knowing the permanent hair loss risk, but he would have offered Kahn other options if she decided she wanted to avoid the risk.
Khan is seeking economic and non-economic damages, including future medical expenses. She is also seeking damages for loss of income, permanent disfigurement, mental anguish, emotional distress, physical and mental pain, and impairment of her quality of life.
Attorneys for both Sanofi and Khan did not respond to requests for comment.