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Ozempic is the brand name for a drug that uses semaglutide to treat type 2 diabetes. Its efficacy to cause weight loss were well known, and a couple of years ago its manufacturer, Novo Nordisk, tinkered with the dosing and got the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve the new drug, called Wegovy, as a weight loss drug. After a huge marketing campaign, the new semaglutide drug because incredibly popular.

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Ozempic is the brand name for a drug that uses semaglutide to treat type 2 diabetes. Its efficacy to cause weight loss were well known, and a couple of years ago its manufacturer, Novo Nordisk, tinkered with the dosing and got the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve the new drug, called Wegovy, as a weight loss drug. After a huge marketing campaign, the new semaglutide drug because incredibly popular.

Now, however, it appears that semaglutide is not as safe as its makers said that it would be. Numerous lawsuits have been filed against Novo Nordisk, the pharmaceutical company behind Ozempic and Wegovy, and several other pharmaceutical companies and drug manufacturers that sell other, similar drugs. These lawsuits claim that the diabetes drug Ozempic and these other drugs are responsible for causing severe gastrointestinal issues like gastroparesis, a serious and permanent medical condition where the muscles in the stomach weaken to the point that they cause other medical complications.

The ozempic attorneys at the national law firm Oberheiden P.C. are plaintiff lawyers representing victims who were prescribed Ozempic and took it to treat their diabetes or obesity and who have now suffered from its serious side effects.

There have been some notable developments in the Ozempic litigation over the past week. The court held a status conference on July 10, during which the parties covered various topics related to discovery and other pre-trial matters. But, even more significantly, there was news of a new study which found that Ozempic and other semaglutide medications (like Wegovy and Rybelsus) may cause not only stomach and intestinal issues, but also vision loss. While the study did not focus on causation specifically, it found a statistically significant link between semaglutide use and non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION), a condition that can lead to sudden blindness.

News also broke that Novo Nordisk is not the only company facing scrutiny related to its sale of semaglutide weight loss medications. Eli Lilly is also reportedly facing at least one lawsuit related to its drug, Mounjaro. Our lawyers are following this development closely and will publish any additional updates on this page.

July 5, 2024 - The number of plaintiffs suing Novo Nordisk over the health risks associated with Ozempic continues to rise. At last count, the total number of lawsuits had climbed to more than 100, and we could easily see this number more than double in July as awareness of the litigation continues to grow. For individuals and families who are coping with the effects of complications from Ozempic, filing a lawsuit is an essential step in the recovery process-and it is the only way to hold Novo Nordisk accountable.

While gastroparesis remains a primary focus of the Ozempic-related litigation, we are also starting to see more claims involving ileus and other intestinal problems. For people who experience abdominal pain, constipation, nausea, food intolerance, and other symptoms after taking Ozempic, it is important to seek a diagnosis and treatment as soon as possible. It is important to speak with a lawyer as well, as joining the litigation against Novo Nordisk now will help maximize your chances of recovering just compensation as quickly as possible.

June 28, 2024 - More plaintiffs continue to join the multidistrict litigation (MDL) against Novo Nordisk. The current list of plaintiffs includes individuals who used Ozempic as a weight loss drug as well as individuals who used Ozempic for treatment of Type 2 diabetes-the use for which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) originally approved the drug in 2017.

The lawsuits filed against Novo Nordisk to date largely (though not exclusively) focus on Ozempic's tendency to cause gastroparesis. While the percentage of Ozempic users who develop gastroparesis may be relatively small, the risk is significant enough that Novo Nordisk's failure to take appropriate action to protect Ozempic users warrants liability. This is the argument that our lawyers (and others) are putting forward, and it is the argument that Novo Nordisk will be forced to defend against unless it agrees to a global settlement.

June 21, 2024 - Dozens of plaintiffs have joined the multidistrict litigation (MDL) against Ozempic manufacturer Novo Nordisk in June, bringing the total number of lawsuits to more than 100. The rate of new cases has increased over the past two months, and we anticipate that we will soon see the number of new cases begin rising significantly, as the total number of plaintiffs is ultimately expected to exceed 10,000.

After the judge who was initially assigned to oversee the MDL against Novo Nordisk, the Honorable Gene E.K. Pratter, passed away in May, a new judge was appointed on June 6, 2024. The new judge, the Honorable Karen Marston, held a preliminary hearing in the MDL last week during which she encouraged counsel for both sides to keep the litigation moving forward as efficiently as possible.

Ozempic, Rybelsus, and Wegovy

Ozempic is the brand name for a prescription drug that uses semaglutide, a compound that is manufactured by the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, to treat type 2 diabetes. It was approved by the FDA for this purpose back in 2017. Semaglutide is also sold for a type 2 diabetes treatment by Novo Nordisk under the brand name Rybelsus, which was approved by the FDA in 2019. Rybelsus is administered as a tablet that you swallow. Ozempic is injected using a branded injection pen.

Semaglutide is also sold by Novo Nordisk under the brand name Wegovy. This is the drug that was approved by the FDA in 2021 for weight loss. It comes in a higher concentration than Ozempic.

All of these branded weight loss drugs work the same way. The hormone glucagon-like peptide 1, or GLP-1, gets released by the intestine when you eat. Receptors for GLP-1 are located in the brain, pancreas, stomach, and liver. When these receptors in the stomach receive the hormone, your stomach's digestion process slows down. When this happens, the hunger cravings in your brain decrease.

This helps for people who want to lose weight. They simply do not eat as much when they use a semaglutide medication like Wegovy.

For people who take Ozempic or Rybelsus for their type 2 diabetes, they benefit from what GLP-1 does to the receptors in their pancreas. There, the hormone triggers the production of insulin while also reducing the production of glucagon. Glucagon is a hormone that the pancreas makes to increase your blood sugar levels. By inhibiting the production of glucagon, Ozempic or Rybelsus keep your blood sugar lower, which is crucial for people with type 2 diabetes.

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Attorney-at-Law

Development of Wegovy Explodes Sales

Ozempic and Rybelsus were common drugs for doctors to prescribe to people with type 2 diabetes. However, things took a turn when, in 2021, The New England Journal of Medicine published a study that found that semaglutide treatments caused people to lose, on average, 15 percent of their body weight. These results confirmed what many doctors had already known about Ozempic and Rybelsus: Off-label prescriptions of the drug to lose weight had been common.

However, once the FDA approved Wegovy, the brand of semaglutide designed for weight loss for the obese, sales of the new form of semaglutide soared. The explosion in popularity was driven by an aggressive marketing campaign that targeted online influencers to get them to tout the drug's effectiveness for weight loss. This quickly became a problem, as Wegovy is FDA-approved for chronic weight management. Doctors were bowing to their patients' demands and were now prescribing them Wegovy for cosmetic weight loss, not weight loss for people who were obese or overweight and with a related comorbidity. This off-label prescription practice became so common that, in March 2023, the FDA announced that there was a supply shortage of Wegovy.

This popularity had several dark sides to it, though.

For one, Wegovy is expensive, costing around $1,300 per month. When it first came out, it also was not covered by health insurance for any form of weight loss treatment, leaving patients to pay the entire cost. This created a problem: Obesity is most prevalent in lower income adults, but only high earners could afford to pay for the drug. As time has passed, more insurers have decided to cover Wegovy for weight loss in their obese or overweight policyholders, having concluded that the decrease in the myriad health risks created by obesity made it worth covering the weight loss drug. Novo Nordisk's prodding of its consumers to push their insurance company to cover it may have helped, as well. Many insurance companies still do not cover the treatment, and it was only in March, 2024, that Medicare started covering Wegovy, but only then with significant limitations.

Second, Wegovy only works if you keep taking it. If you stop, the effects of the drug wear off. People who go off Wegovy put the weight right back on. This aspect of the drug, together with its price, does not just make it an extremely lucrative cash cow for Novo Nordisk; it also means that people who are taking Wegovy and experience a financial setback - like job loss - are likely to have their problems compounded by the weight gain and its attendant medical problems.

Now, as more and more people are using semaglutide drugs like Ozempic, Rybelsus, and increasingly Wegovy, some serious side effects are emerging.

Semaglutide's Serious Side Effects

As is typical with a prescription drug, the more people take it, the more is learned about the drug's side effects - far more people take the drug after it has been approved by the FDA than those who take it during the clinical trial phase.

Ozempic, Rybelsus, and Wegovy are no exceptions. Since hitting the market, some of the people who take these semaglutide drugs have reported developing serious gastrointestinal problems, including gastroparesis.

Gastroparesis, also called delayed gastric emptying, is the serious medical condition where the muscles in the stomach weaken. As they grow weaker, the contractions that move food and liquid out of the stomach and into the intestines also grow weaker. This extends the amount of time that the food and liquid spend in the stomach, which creates numerous complications, including:

Poor absorption of nutrients

Reduced glycemic control

Bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine

Intestinal obstruction

The fallout from these conditions includes numerous serious symptoms, like:

Malnutrition

Fatigue

Muscle weakness from lack of food

Weight loss

Vitamin deficiencies

Nausea

Diarrhea

Vomiting

Stomach pain

Bloating

Heartburn

Poor appetite

These symptoms can be extremely debilitating and even life-threatening, particularly if the underlying condition is not correctly diagnosed right away. Worse, for people taking Ozempic or Rybelsus, gastroparesis can complicate their treatment for their type 2 diabetes, and their diabetes can mask the symptoms of gastroparesis, making it more difficult for doctors to accurately diagnose the condition.

Gastroparesis is a permanent condition with no cure and with treatment options that do not reliably produce good results. Several studies have found that people who develop gastroparesis live shorter lives.

Novo Nordisk's Failure to Warn Doctors and Consumers of the Risks

In spite of the risks of serious gastrointestinal injuries caused by its semaglutide drugs, Novo Nordisk did not warn anyone about them, and consistently downplayed the threats that its drugs posed to the gastrointestinal health of consumers.

When the semaglutide drugs were approved by the FDA, the warning labels mentioned stomach issues as potential side effects. However, the warnings were generalized - they mentioned risks for things like stomach pain, nausea, and vomiting, not such a severe and particular gastrointestinal condition as gastroparesis. Furthermore, on the warning labels for Wegovy, Ozempic, and Rybelsus, the generalized gastrointestinal issues were not mentioned in the first page that highlights the chief concerns about taking the drug. As a result, doctors were often left unaware of the potential damage that the drug could cause, making them unable to make informed decisions about whether to prescribe a semaglutide drug to a patient with preexisting stomach issues, or whether the potential for harm outweighed the risks.

When it marketed its semaglutide drugs, particularly Wegovy, Novo Nordisk engaged in an extensive direct-to-consumer campaign to get patients to request a prescription from their doctor. In 2022 alone, the pharmaceutical company spent $180.2 million on advertisements for Ozempic, and another $167.2 million on Rybelsus advertisements, often in the form of commercials on national television programs that end with the usual phrase, "ask your doctor about whether Ozempic is right for you." That ad spend only increased in 2023, when Novo Nordisk was spending nearly $500 million on advertising.

This advertising campaign also targeted online influencers, urging them tout the drug's efficacy for weight loss to their followers. These influencers, of course, are rarely doctors with any medical expertise, meaning their followers who were unknowingly being exposed to Novo Nordisk's influencer marketing campaign were left completely in the dark about the risks that the drug could pose to their health. Typically, pharmaceutical advertisements list the potential side effects, but by working through online influencers Novo Nordisk was able to skirt around medical advertising regulations and tout all of the drug's benefits without mentioning the side effects. The campaign got so intense that TikTok even had to crack down on its users pushing Ozempic and Wegovy.

As signs of gastrointestinal problems began to emerge and researchers began following the source of the issues to semaglutide medications, Novo Nordisk acknowledged the risks, but downplayed their severity and claimed that gastroparesis, in particular, is also something associated with diabetes - basically blaming diabetes for causing gastroparesis.

Then, in January, 2024, a case report in drew a connection between semaglutide and gastroparesis. While the report said that it was "unusual" for semaglutide to cause gastroparesis, it noted that "it is well recognized that GLP-1 receptors regulate stomach emptying and motility." Furthermore, the symptoms of the patient that was the subject of the case report showed significant improvement when they were taken off the drug.

In spite of this case report, the warning labels for Novo Nordisk's semaglutide drugs have not been updated to reflect the potential for gastroparesis.

Lawsuits Filed Against Novo Nordisk

Recently, lawsuits have been filed against Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly as well as a few other pharmaceutical companies that make similar drugs, aiming to hold the companies accountable through products liability law for the harm caused by their semaglutide drugs. Specifically, these lawsuits argue that Novo Nordisk failed to uphold its legal duty to warn consumers of the dangers of using its products. They also make additional legal claims that allege Novo Nordisk's marketing for its semaglutide drugs amounted to making false or misleading statements or representations about the drugs.

Under products liability law, all manufacturers have a legal duty to warn consumers of any known or knowable dangers of using their product in the way that it was intended to be used, or was used in a reasonably foreseeable fashion. This legal duty is especially important in the pharmaceutical industry, where the product is a drug that alters the chemistry inside a human being in order to treat a medical condition.

The lawsuits allege that Novo Nordisk failed to uphold this duty to warn its consumers by not disclosing the risks of developing a serious case of gastroparesis while using its semaglutide products Ozempic, Wegovy, and Rybelsus. Such risks, the lawsuits claim, were at least knowable, as Novo Nordisk was fully aware of the general abdominal and gastrointestinal issues its drugs caused. Furthermore, the way semaglutide worked in the body made it foreseeable that it could cause gastroparesis, so Novo Nordisk should at least have studied the potential risk more closely.

The lawsuits also claim that state and federal laws against making false or misleading statements in advertising were violated by Novo Nordisk's marketing campaign for its semaglutide products. According to the lawsuits, that marketing campaign played up the benefits of the drugs and omitted important warnings about the risks to such an extent that it amounted to false advertising.

Damages Sought

The lawsuits demand compensation for the victims' losses. Given the severity of gastroparesis and how debilitating a serious case of it can be, those losses can be substantial.

The most obvious way that victims have suffered from Novo Nordisk's semaglutide drugs are the medical expenses that they have accumulated. Gastroparesis is a serious and incurable stomach condition that requires constant treatment. This can get expensive over time. Additionally, people who develop gastroparesis often need emergency care if they are continuously vomiting from the backup of contents in their stomach.

But victims are not just entitled to having their medical expenses covered. If they had a serious and disabling case of gastroparesis, there is a good chance that they lost wages from missing work. They are entitled to compensation for those losses, as well. The vomiting, nausea, and serious issues with food and nutritional intake and digestion can also cause lots of physical pain and emotional and mental suffering. Even though these losses are difficult to distill into a dollar amount, that does not mean that the victim did not suffer them. If Novo Nordisk's failure to warn people about the risks of using its products is proven to have caused some people to suffer from gastroparesis, then Novo Nordisk should compensate them accordingly.

Novo Nordisk's Defenses

While the lawsuits are still in their early stages and the company could choose a different line of defense if a better one arises, it appears as if Novo Nordisk will use three different legal defense strategies to combat the lawsuits against it.

First, the company will challenge the causation element of the plaintiffs' claims. In products liability claims, it is up to the plaintiffs to prove that the defendant's defective product or failure to warn about the dangers of using it actually caused the plaintiffs' losses. Novo Nordisk has already claimed that the gastroparesis that the plaintiffs' developed was caused by their diabetes. They will likely continue to make this claim.

Second, Novo Nordisk will claim that its warnings about the risks of the drug were adequate and sufficient to avoid liability. They will likely argue that the FDA's acceptance of the warning label indicates that the company did what was necessary to comply with the law.

Finally, Novo Nordisk will argue that the risks of gastroparesis were not knowable. During the clinical trials, participants developed gastrointestinal issues, but Novo Nordisk will claim that there were not enough gastroparesis cases to raise alarm bells or warrant further investigation.

MDL Created in Pennsylvania

Because there are lots of victims who will have all suffered in similar ways as a result of a single course of conduct by a select group of companies, the semaglutide or Ozempic lawsuits are considered a mass tort. In the past, the legal system would have resolved these cases through an Ozempic class action lawsuit. Now, multidistrict litigation (MDL) is the favored way of moving these cases forward.

Already, an MDL for these lawsuits has been created in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. As of June, 2024, it had 101 separate cases in it.

In an MDL, lawsuits that make the same allegations against the same defendants are consolidated into one court for the pre-trial process. This process includes:

Motions to dismiss

Discovery of evidence

Depositions of relevant people

Summary judgment motions

Evidentiary rulings

This way, all of the cases can gather the evidence necessary to resolve them without putting the defendant in an overly burdensome situation where they have to respond to each case, individually.

As the cases in the MDL move forward and evidence is uncovered, settlement talks will start, particularly if the defendants start to think that they could be held liable for their actions. However, it is not uncommon for MDLs to advance to the bellwether trial stage. This is when a couple of individual cases that closely represent the others in the MDL are taken to trial. The verdict of the jury is then used to inform the plaintiffs and defendants as to how the other cases in the MDL will likely go, and this is used to settle the rest of the MDL.

Mass Tort Attorneys at Oberheiden P.C.

The Ozempic lawsuit lawyers at Oberheiden P.C. are helping victims of Ozempic and other semaglutide drugs recover compensation for the gastroparesis caused by the drug. Call their national intake hotline at 866-781-9539 or contact them online to see if you are eligible to join the pending MDL against these massive pharmaceutical companies today.

Further Information About Our Ozempic Lawsuit Services

Ozempic Lawsuit (July Update)

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If you've been injured after taking Ozempic, you may be entitled to compensation. File an Ozempic lawsuit with Oberheiden today. Free Consult.