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# Court Dismisses Eliquis Case
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/court-dismisses-eliquis-case/
- Published: 2017-05-18T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T22:24:28.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5138727

A New York federal court has dismissed for a second time a case against Bristol-Myers Squibb over its blood thinner Eliquis. The first time the case was heard, the court rejected as preempted the plaintiff’s design defect claims and said the case could be amended on non-design aspects. In the second hearing, the court rejected as preempted allegations about warnings the plaintiff believed the company should have added to the drug’s labeling. Attorney **James Beck** (Reed Smith) says in an online [post](https://www.druganddevicelawblog.com/2017/05/no-ifs-ands-or-butts-preemption-gutts-rebutts-and-shutts-down-utts.html?ref=fdaweb.com) that the case turned on whether the warnings involved “newly acquired information” that the company could have added to the drug label under the FDA “changes being effected” exception to preemption.

Beck says the plaintiffs cited old information that did not go beyond what FDA had before it when it approved the drug initially. As a next-generation anticoagulant, Eliquis is subject to risks of serious and sometimes fatal bleeding that are inherent in what this type of drug is supposed to do, Beck writes. “Basically, the well-known fact that anticoagulants carry with them serious bleeding risks is why none of the information that the plaintiffs brought forward qualified as ‘new,’” he says. The court held that the allegations were preempted because the warnings sought by the plaintiffs could not be added without prior FDA approval. The court also decided that preemption could be decided on a motion to dismiss.