Actos bladder cancer lawsuits filed in California state court will be consolidated for purposes of pretrial discovery and motion proceedings under Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Carl West. Also, federal Actos bladder cancer lawsuits were similarly consolidated in a multidistrict litigation in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.
Actos, manufactured by Takeda Pharmaceutical, was approved by the FDA in 1999 to treat Type 2 diabetes. However, since that time, Actos has been linked to an increased risk of bladder cancer, especially those patients who’ve taken Actos for an extended period of time.
In June 2011, the FDA issued an Actos warning about the bladder cancer link and noted, “”results from two, three-year controlled clinical studies of Actos (the PROactive study and a liver safety study) demonstrated a higher percentage of bladder cancer cases in patients receiving Actos versus comparators,” the FDA wrote in its announcement of the safety review.”
According to MedPage, “The FDA is investigating a possible link between pioglitazone (Actos) and bladder cancer, and, as a result, both of the available thiazolidinediones — pioglitazone and rosiglitazone (Avandia) — are undergoing safety reviews.
The FDA said it initiated the pioglitazone review after it received preliminary data from a 10-year epidemiological study sponsored by Takeda.”