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In a sweeping new lawsuit, over 900 people are claiming that Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs caused them gastrointestinal injuries, sometimes even after ceasing use of them.
As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports, this is the first lawsuit of its kind targeting GLP-1s, which are believed to mimic the stomach’s feeling of fullness and carry laundry lists of both unexpected benefits and concerning side effects.
“If the hazard is serious, you have to warn about it, even if it’s infrequent,” Paul Pennock, one of the lawyers bringing the case, told the Post-Gazette. “I think we’ll be able to prove that the warnings that existed really did not provide a succinct description of what’s happening.”
Earlier this summer, Pennock described the situation of a patient who he said repeatedly ended up at the hospital because of the severity of her symptoms from the drug.
“Her problems have been so severe that she’s been to the emergency room multiple times, including last weekend,” he told CBS at the time. “She’s actually even thrown up so violently that she’s lost teeth.”
Last week, Pennock’s team for the 929 plaintiffs and those for the drugmakers behind popular weight loss injectables like Ozempic and Mounjaro presented their sides in a so-called “Science Day,” which helps inform the courts on complicated cases like this one.
Attorney Jonathan Orent, who’s also representing the plaintiffs, said that although it could take years for the case to move through the courts, he’s hoping the case will “be able to get to trial in the not-too-distant future.”
During this pretrial procedure, drugmakers Eli Lilly (which makes Mounjaro and Zepbound) and Novo Nordisk (which is behind Ozempic and Wegovy) were acknowledged that these medications do indeed cause gastrointestinal issues, though there was serious semantic disagreement about the severity and classification of those side effects that would likely form the backbone of the trial.
As Orent explained, the vast majority of this case’s plaintiffs experienced gastroparesis, a long-term disorder involving intestinal paralysis that makes it difficult for their stomachs to empty into their small intestines.
“I think it was a huge win today,” Orent said, “to hear from the companies that nobody disputes that these drugs can cause the harm that has befallen more than 85 percent of this multidistrict litigation.”
That’s a somewhat optimistic summary; the drugmakers’ representatives argued that there should be a distinction between gastroparesis and temporarily delayed gastric emptying, which as the name suggests occurs when the process of emptying the contents of the stomach into the small intestine is delayed or slowed.
Though the terms are sometimes used interchangeably in the medical establishment, Orent’s co-counsel Sarah Ruane said the defense spent a lot of time focused on what to call these side effects.
“There were a variety of terms thrown out today, but the practical reality of what our clients are going through, as far as hospitalizations, time away from work, inability to perform daily functions for their families, that’s all real,” Ruane told the Post-Gazette. “That’s all happening.”
Speaking to the newspaper, Eli Lilly attorney Mark Premo-Hopkins said that the drugs can cause “temporary” delays to gastric emptying, but asserted that it should not be conflated with gastroparesis, which is more permanent and has no known cure.
“Our position is that it does not cause gastroparesis. Gastroparesis is not just delayed gastric emptying,” Premo-Hopkins said. “The clinical symptoms of gastroparesis are common. They’re identical to and indistinguishable from symptoms of many, many other conditions.”
Semantics aside, these pre-trial disagreements between plaintiffs and defense illustrate the existential questions at play with these drugs and their many risks. Can these drugs cause permanent damage? And even if they do, will patients who want access to their significant health benefits — or, let’s be real, who want to lose weight for aesthetic reasons — actually be dissuaded from taking them?
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