Ozempic Lawsuit in PA Moving Forward

In one of the latest Ozempic developments, the PA MDL committee appointed retired judge Lawrence F. Stengel to oversee discovery in the case.

In July and August of 2024, the number of Ozempic lawsuits in the Glucagon-like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists (GLP-1 RAs) Products Liability Litigation grew significantly. As of July 2024, about 100 lawsuits were consolidated into the litigation (MDL 3094).  In August of 2024, that figure had increased 200 percent to nearly 350 cases.

The court order appointing Judge Stengel also states, in pertinent part, “This Order is entered to provide for the fair and equitable sharing among plaintiffs and their counsel of the burden of services performed and expenses incurred by attorneys acting for the common benefit of all plaintiffs in this complex litigation.”

The Ozempic Lawsuit

Obesity and diabetes are two of the most significant health problems in America. For companies like Novo Nordic, a large health problem is an opportunity to make powerful drugs, charge high prices, and aggressively market them.

Powerful drugs have powerful side-effects. According to several studies, some of the serious side-effects associated with Ozempic include:

• Non-Arteritic Anterior Ischemic Opic Neuropathy (NAION): Vision loss.
•  Gastroparesis: This condition, which is also known as stomach paralysis, weakens stomach muscles, thus impeding the digestion process. Undigested food often hardens and forms a tumor-like object. Extreme abnormal digestion is disabling in many cases.
• GI Issues: These issues include biliary disease, gastroparesis, pancreatitis, and bowel obstructions. Usually, these conditions aren’t life-threatening for healthy people. But they could be life-threatening for dangerously obese people or patients with advanced diabetes. In other words, they could be life-threatening for people who take Ozempic.
• DVT: Most people don’t associate a risk like deep vein thrombosis with a weight loss and diabetes drug. Because of the disassociation, many patients, and many doctors, dismiss initial DVT symptoms, such as pain, swelling, and redness in the affected area. If not diagnosed and treated quickly, DVTs break loose and migrate to the lungs, causing a pulmonary embolism.
• Pulmonary Aspiration: Everyone aspirates occasionally when food or liquid “goes down the wrong pipe.” But a PA is a serious complication that occurs when food, liquid, or other material accidentally enters a person’s airway and lungs instead of the esophagus, causing difficulty breathing, choking, and, in some cases, pneumonia.

Ozempic is a GLP-1 drug that slows down how quickly food passes through the stomach, leading people to feel fuller longer. Other GLP-1 drugs, which cause similar side-effects and are included in the Ozempic MDL, include Dulaglutide, Semaglutide, Exenatide, Liraglutide, Saxenda, and Byetta.

Legal Issues

Dangerous drug litigation usually involves one of three possible legal theories. Only an experienced pharmaceutical attorney explores all legal options.

• Negligent Failure to Warn: Most dangerous drug cases asses whether the defendant failed to sufficiently warn potential victims of all known side-effects. Frequently, companies like Novo Nordic either don’t warn people or bury warnings on a long list of milder side-effects.

• Defective Product: Companies are strictly libel for the damages their defective products cause. Causation is an element in negligence cases as well. The difference is subtle, yet important. A defective product claim asserts that Ben took Ozempic and got DVT. A negligence claim asserts that the company didn’t warn Ben and, for some reason, he got DVT.
• Public Nuisance: Our skilled pharmaceutical litigation lawyers often assess this claim when a dangerous product or substance, like a dangerous drug, injures hundreds or thousands of people at the same time.

Damages in a civil action usually include compensation for economic losses, such as current and future medical expenses, and noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering. Additional punitive damages are usually available in these cases as well.

The MDL Process

As mentioned, dangerous drug cases often injure hundreds or thousands of people at roughly the same time. If courts attempt to consider these cases piecemeal, the volume will overwhelm the courts. However, many dangerous drug cases don’t qualify for class action status. The victims have different injuries and, in the case of this MDL, may have ingested different substances.

Multi-District Litigation is a hybrid piecemeal/class action claim. Categorically similar claims are consolidated for pretrial purposes into a single court. Generally, the presiding judge appoints a special master, which in this case was Judge Stengel, to supervise discovery, rule on procedural motions, and otherwise handle the pretrial process.

The expanded MDL pretrial process usually includes two or three bellwether trials. Basically, these trials give a product liability lawyer a chance to present claims before “a live, studio audience.” The bellwether trial win-loss record greatly affects the amount of a settlement in these cases.

In the unlikely event a non-bellwether MDL case doesn’t settle, the MDL judge kicks it back to its home jurisdiction for trial.

Dangerous drugs, like Ozempic, cause serious injuries. For a free consultation with a skilled defective drug attorney, contact Napoli Shkolnik today.