Federal Court Grants Summary Judgment to Shook Client Sanofi

A federal district court in Louisiana has dismissed the failure-to-warn claims of approximately 200 users of the cancer drug Taxotere alleging permanent hair loss after use of the drug. The court stated that the drug’s label adequately warned about the side effect after a December 2015 label update. The court rejected the plaintiffs’ argument, backed by plaintiffs’ expert witness, that the warning should have appeared in the “warnings and precautions” section of the label instead of the three other places on the label where maker Sanofi-Aventis US LLC had it listed. The court stated that the expert opinion did not address the label in context to the post-2015 cases and noted plaintiffs’ lack of other evidence. The court stated, “Plaintiffs had ample time and opportunity to identify and present expert evidence supporting their argument that permanent hair loss should have been addressed in the ‘warnings and precautions’ section of the label. Yet Plaintiffs failed to do so.” 
 
Sanofi was granted summary judgment on the warnings-based claims of plaintiffs whose treatment started after Dec. 11, 2015.

Bloomberg Law, Law360 and Drug & Device Law reported on the victory. 

Sanofi was represented by Shook Partners Harley Ratliff, Jon Strongman and Adrienne Byard.

The case is In re Taxotere (Docetaxel) Prods. Liab. Litig., 2020 BL 196815, E.D. La., No. 16-2740 (E.D. Louisiana, May 27, 2020).