An American woman is suing Novo Nordisk after having to undergo drastic emergency surgery, claiming labels on its weight loss drugs do not adequately warn patients and doctors about potentially serious side effects.
Juanita Gantt, who had always had weight problems, was prescribed both Wegovy and Ozempic, reports CBS News, and at 62, weighed 110kg. She said diabetes was “rampant” in her family, and because of this, her doctor prescribed Wegovy and later Ozempic, both GLP-1 drugs from Novo Nordisk.
But several months later, in October 2023, her husband found her on the floor unconscious.
Doctors found parts of her large intestine had died and needed to be removed. While recovering from surgery, she went into cardiac arrest.
She survived, but with her colon gone, Gantt now lives with an ileostomy bag attached to her abdomen at all times to collect waste.
She said she had no warning that this was even a possibility and is taking Novo Nordisk to court, claiming its drug labels do not adequately warn patients and doctors about potentially serious side effects, including gastroparesis or stomach paralysis, and bowel obstruction.
“It’s put a lot of resources into marketing the drug, hundreds of millions of dollars to expand the market to get new patients for the drug, but it hasn’t spent that money on warning patients of the risk of gastroparesis, ileus, small bowel obstruction, and the fact that these injuries can be severe, even if it’s in a rare case,” said her attorney.
In a statement to CBS News about this lawsuit and others against it, Novo Nordisk said: “The known risks and benefits of semaglutide and liraglutide medicines are described in their FDA-approved product labelling.” The company wrote that “the allegations … are without merit” and that it intends to “vigorously defend against these claims”.
The company added that semaglutide, the drug sold under the Ozempic and Wegovy brand names, has been extensively examined in robust clinical development programmes and large real world evidence studies.
It had previously said in court documents that gastrointestinal symptoms are known and labelled side effects.
A study last year found a higher risk of bowel obstruction and stomach paralysis for patients taking certain GLP-1 drugs for weight loss, when compared with another weight loss drug combination, though those complications were relatively rare.
“It’s really important for patients to put that into context, that their individual risk may potentially be low, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen to them,” said study co-author Dr Mohit Sodhi.
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