Mirapex/Compulsive Gambling Suits Consolidated in Minnesota Federal Court

Minneapolis is now home for more than two hundred lawsuits from around the country alleging that the anti-Parkinson's drug Mirapex triggers compulsive gambling behaviors.  Those actions have been consolidated for discovery purposes before Chief Judge M. Rosenbaum of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota.  In In re: Mirapex Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 07-1836 (JMR/FLN),  the plaintiffs cite studies by the Mayo Clinic and the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Research Center that report a higher incidence of compulsive gambling among people receiving doses of dopamine, the principal element of Mirapex.

In all of the cases, the defendants are the drug companies that developed and market Mirapex: Boehringer Ingelheim, Pfizer, and Pharmacia & Upjohn.  The defendants won dismissal of most of the fraud and misrepresentation claims in the lawsuits, arguing that the plaintiffs failed to plead fraud with the specificity required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b).  The court did allow plaintiffs to proceed on a claim that the drug's sponsors deceived the Food and Drug Administration as to the consequences of taking Mirapex.

Discovery has proceeded on several "bellwether" individual claims, which will be used to crystallize the factual and legal questions in the litigation.  The drug company defendants have filed a motion for summary judgment under seal, which will be argued later this month.  If that motion is successful, the court would dispose of all the cases.