Lawsuits against anti-obesity drugs

The class action lawsuit involves a 58-year-old man who took Ozempic because of difficult-to-control diabetes. Because of stomach discomfort, his doctor instead prescribed Trulicity, another GLP-1 agonist from Eli Lilly, in March 2023.

According to the class action lawsuit, he “developed severe stomach pain accompanied by vomiting” after a few months and was diagnosed with pancreatitis. In March 2024, he was hospitalized twice and had his gallbladder removed, an operation which still causes him pain.

“GLP-1 agonists” promise dramatic weight loss by producing a feeling of fullness. They were initially used in diabetics because they stimulate the production of insulin, a hormone that facilitates the passage of sugar from the blood into the cells. As diabetics lost weight using these molecules, they were later approved to treat obesity.

The Siskinds law firm says these potential problems were known, but were not mentioned in Eli Lilly’s social media ads and were slow to be included in patient warnings.

Caroline Perrault of Siskinds says gallbladder disorders have been mentioned in Food and Drug Administration safety alerts (FDA) in 2021, intestinal obstructions in 2022, aspirations in 2023 and “non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy” in 2024.

“Some of these alerts resulted in the updating of the monographs of the drugs concerned,” says M.^e Perrault. To our knowledge, no investigation in the world has led, to date, to sanctions or fines against the manufacturers of the original medicines. »

Siskinds’ request mentions a study published in 2022 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) by FDA researchers who reported 36 gallbladder problems in patients taking GLP-1 agonists.

As of press time, Eli Lilly had not responded to a request for comment.