A United States federal judicial panel has said it would centralise a growing number of lawsuits against Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly – alleging patients lost some or all of their eyesight while taking the companies’ blockbuster weight-loss drugs.
The Judicial Panel on Multi-district Litigation, which manages complex federal litigation, agreed with the plaintiffs that the cases should be centralised in their own multi-district litigation (MDL) in Philadelphia federal court rather than added to the existing mass litigation in the same court over gastrointestinal side effects of the drugs, reports Reuters.
The panel said that despite the injuries being different, there would be overlap between the two multi-district litigation proceedings, so they would proceed separately but be before the same judge, US District Judge Karen Marston.
The lawsuits in the new MDL allege that the drugs, including Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic, Wegovy and Saxenda, and Eli Lilly’s Trulicity, can trigger non-arteritic anterior ischaemic optic neuropathy, a condition that occurs when blood flow to the optic nerve is blocked or reduced, which can lead to blindness.
The plaintiffs had asked the panel to create a separate multi-district litigation for the cases, arguing that the optic neuropathy cases deal with different medical issues and evidence than other lawsuits claiming the drug can cause gastroparesis, a paralysis of the gastrointestinal tract.
The gastroparesis lawsuits were centralised before Marston in February 2024.
The companies had urged the panel to add the cases to the existing gastroparesis MDL.
Currently, there are 30 optic neuropathy lawsuits pending in federal court, and more than 40 in state court. They began hitting dockets after a July 2024 study described the potential risk of the condition associated with the drugs.
There are nearly 3 000 lawsuits over the gastroparesis claims in the MDL, according to court records.
The companies have refuted the claims over gastroparesis and optic neuropathy, arguing that the risk of gastroparesis is well-publicised and that the companies are unable to change the drugs’ design without the approval of the US Food and Drug Administration.
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