Ozempic Lawsuit

August 15, 2025: Huge New Ruling

U.S. District Judge Karen Spencer Marston has now issued two major rulings that will shape the future of the GLP-1 receptor agonist MDL, which includes more than 2,000 cases against Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly.

In the judge’s order today, the court resolved a cluster of Daubert motions by holding that plaintiffs’ gastroparesis claims must be grounded in objective medical testing. As Judge Marston put it, “any Plaintiff claiming to suffer (or have suffered) from gastroparesis, must show that their diagnosis is based on a properly performed gastric emptying study.”   That standard may narrow the pool of viable claims, unfairly, we would argue.  But it also clarifies the evidentiary hoops we need to jump and forces defendants to confront plaintiffs armed with hard diagnostic proof.

We now know this litigation is not going away and we really did not know this for sure going into this ruling. The companies tried to knock out twelve of the seventeen counts in the master complaint, arguing that statements about their drugs being “safe and effective” were non-actionable puffery and that design defect theories were federally preempted.

Judge Marston agreed in part, dismissing design defect claims and striking vague allegations about fraudulent omissions in general marketing. But she refused to accept the puffery defense. Plaintiffs had identified specific safety and efficacy representations, many amplified by paid scientists and celebrities, that went miles beyond boilerplate. Those, she found, “are sufficient to survive dismissal at this early stage of the litigation.” Most importantly, the court held that omissions from the drugs’ labels, including the lack of gastroparesis warnings, were pled with enough specificity to move forward.

For victims, the rulings cut both ways. On one hand, claims of stomach paralysis must now be tied to a gastric emptying study or equivalent test, which could eliminate individuals whose doctors relied only on clinical impressions.  Some people will be unjustly left out of the litigation, and that is not fair. On the other hand, the central narrative survives: that Novo and Lilly aggressively marketed GLP-1 drugs for weight loss while concealing known risks, reaping billions in the process. Warranty and labeling claims remain alive, and the court declined to prune state law negligence and warranty counts at this stage. The net result is that victims who can produce objective proof of their injuries still have a clear path to trial, and Novo and Lilly will face discovery on allegations that they knowingly downplayed life-altering side effects in the pursuit of market dominance.

August 14, 2025 – New Jersey NAION Class Action Gains Steam

Novo Nordisk may soon face a coordinated mass tort proceeding in New Jersey state court over claims that its blockbuster weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy caused permanent vision loss.

More than 30 plaintiffs have petitioned for multicounty litigation designation. That is nine more than our last report below on June 17.   The plaintiffs allege that the drugs caused them to develop non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION, a serious and irreversible condition. The proposed venue is Middlesex County, where the cases are currently spread across eight judges and involve plaintiffs from 13 states.

We say class action, but it is not a pure class action. Like the federal MDL, this would be a multicounty litigation, a coordinated mass tort structure that centralizes pretrial proceedings without consolidating the cases for trial. Each plaintiff maintains an individual claim, but discovery, expert challenges, and motions practice are streamlined across the docket. The aim is efficiency, but the result is often to give plaintiffs greater structural leverage, especially in early bellwether trials or global settlement discussions.

You are seeing more and more of this in mass torts.  Law firms like us are increasingly choosing state courts to press complex drug injury claims outside the procedural bottlenecks and evidentiary gatekeeping that have come to define too many federal MDLs. In fact, the path the Ozempic MDL is on is one that you want to avoid.

August 1, 2025 – MDL Case Count

As of today, the GLP-1 RA MDL 3072 has a total of 2,190 pending cases. This litigation continues to see a steady stream of new filings, highlighting the growing concerns about potential undisclosed risks associated with popular diabetes and weight-loss medications like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro.

The vast majority of these claims involve gastroparesis lawsuits.  Does this reflect new excitement about this litigation?  The most honest answer is no.  We are still taking these cases and there is cautious optimism about how the MDL judge will rule on Daubert. But not many people in the know would be willing to bet a lot of money on it, one way or the other.

July 28, 2025 – New Study Finds Link Between Ozempic and Retinal Vein Occlusion

In a newly released observational study out of Sweden, researchers found a potential association between semaglutide use and retinal vein occlusion (RVO). This serious eye condition can cause sudden vision loss. The study, which analyzed insurance data from over 800,000 diabetic patients, reported that users of GLP-1 receptor agonists like Ozempic had a 1.6 times higher risk of developing RVO compared to those on traditional diabetes therapies. While the authors cautioned that more research is needed, the findings add to the growing body of evidence that semaglutide may contribute to vascular eye damage. This emerging risk may further complicate Novo Nordisk’s defense in the wave of NAION lawsuits already underway.

July 19, 2025 – Plaintiffs Seek Vision Track Within MDL

Plaintiffs’ leadership in the Ozempic MDL has submitted a motion to Judge Pratter requesting the formal creation of a “Vision Injury Track” within MDL 3094. The proposed structure would group NAION and other ocular injury claims together for streamlined discovery, expert development, and eventual bellwether selection. According to the motion, over 140 cases in the MDL now involve claims of partial or total blindness. Plaintiffs argue that the growing number of vision-related injuries and their distinct factual and scientific issues warrant separate treatment from the gastroparesis claims. Defense counsel has not yet responded, but the motion signals that NAION litigation is no longer a sideline issue and the Ozempic lawyers in the MDL do not want the New Jersey state court to take over this litigation.

July 15, 2025 – Texas Woman Sues Over Sudden Blindness After Ozempic Use

A new lawsuit filed in Travis County, Texas, alleges that a 52-year-old woman suffered sudden and irreversible blindness after using Ozempic for just six months. The complaint claims she developed NAION in one eye and lost 90 percent of her vision in a single day. Her attorneys argue that Novo Nordisk ignored red flags in early clinical trials and failed to provide meaningful warnings to physicians or patients. The lawsuit also cites recent studies suggesting that semaglutide may impair optic nerve blood flow.

This is one of several new cases in state courts outside the MDL, and it underscores a broader trend: vision loss plaintiffs are increasingly willing to bypass federal consolidation in favor of faster-moving, high-visibility trials at the state level. This case is obviously incredibly strong if these injuries can be linked to Ozempic.

June 24, 2025 – Beyond Just NAION: Ozempic and Wegovy Linked to Increased Risk of Vision Loss

A new study in JAMA Ophthalmology has added another entry to the growing ledger of concerns about Ozempic and Wegovy, with yet more concerns involving the loss of vision.

Researchers from the University of Toronto found that patients taking semaglutide, the active ingredient in both drugs, were twice as likely to develop neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD). This disease gradually destroys central vision and often leads to permanent impairment.

The study looked at nearly 140,000 patients with type 2 diabetes from 2020 to 2023. The risk was small in absolute terms, just over two in 1,000 for semaglutide users versus one in 1,000 for non-users. But the increase was real and statistically significant. Researchers controlled for other known risk factors, including kidney function, smoking, and the use of insulin and metformin.

What stands out is not just the result, but the biological plausibility: GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic alter vascular and inflammatory pathways. These are mechanisms directly implicated in macular degeneration. That ought to matter to doctors. It certainly should matter to patients.

Ozempic was not marketed as a weight loss miracle, but it became one. The public embraced it before science caught up. Now that evidence is emerging, first about stomach paralysis, now about vision, companies like Novo Nordisk will have to answer not just for what they disclosed, but for what they never bothered to investigate.

June 21, 2025 – New NAION Lawsuit

In a new lawsuit filed on Thursday in New Jersey Superior Court, a man from Woodbridge, New Jersey, alleges that his use of the weight-loss drug Wegovy caused him to suffer non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, resulting in permanent vision loss.

According to the complaint, the plaintiff used Wegovy, a GLP-1 receptor agonist, and subsequently developed NAION.

The lawsuit claims that the drug’s manufacturers failed to adequately warn consumers and healthcare providers about the risk of NAION. The plaintiff alleges that the company knew or should have known of the potential for Wegovy to cause optic nerve damage, yet continued to market the drug without proper safety disclosures.

He is seeking compensatory and punitive damages for his injuries, ongoing medical treatment, and diminished quality of life.

June 17, 2025 – NAION Claims Are Heating Up

Twenty-one New Jersey plaintiffs who say they suffered permanent vision loss after taking Ozempic or Wegovy are seeking to consolidate their lawsuits into a multicounty litigation against Novo Nordisk. They are asking New Jersey state courts to coordinate the growing number of cases involving a rare and irreversible eye condition called non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION. These plaintiffs argue that centralization would streamline discovery, reduce inconsistent rulings, and make the litigation more manageable as filings continue to increase, the same arguments that got us a gastroparesis MDL.

What is notable here is that the NAION claims are now generating more attention from lawyers than the earlier wave of gastroparesis lawsuits. While stomach paralysis cases helped launch the Ozempic litigation, the vision-loss allegations are getting a lot of buzz because the injuries are so significant.

Permanent blindness, especially when it develops suddenly and without prior warning, presents a particularly high-stakes form of injury that is more likely to motivate individual lawsuits, media coverage, and eventual jury trials.

As scientific studies continue to examine a possible causal link between GLP-1 receptor agonists and optic nerve damage,  these cases will continue to move to the center stage.

June 10, 2025 – NAION Warning

Momentum is building behind calls for the FDA to take action on Ozempic’s potential vision risks. Several ophthalmologists and public health advocates are now urging the agency to require a black box warning on semaglutide drugs, including Ozempic, Wegovy, and Rybelsus, in light of mounting evidence linking them to nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION).

This comes after recent reports in JAMA Ophthalmology and a Danish registry study suggested a statistically significant association between semaglutide use and sudden vision loss events. The push for regulatory change is being amplified by attorneys involved in the New Jersey multicounty litigation effort, who argue that Novo Nordisk has long been aware of this potential risk but has failed to update its labeling accordingly.

A black box warning would represent a major shift. It would not only reshape physician prescribing behavior but could also open the door to new theories of liability for failure to warn. For plaintiffs’ lawyers, it would be a powerful piece of evidence showing that the dangers of NAION were both foreseeable and preventable.

Expect pressure to grow, especially as more independent case reports emerge and as media coverage draws attention to the life-altering nature of these injuries. This is not just a litigation story anymore—it is rapidly becoming a public health issue.

June 2, 2025 – Early Defense Strategy Emerges in Vision Loss Cases

Novo Nordisk is already telegraphing part of its defense strategy for the NAION lawsuits: blame the underlying health conditions. In several recent filings, the company has suggested that diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol, common among Ozempic users, are known risk factors for optic nerve damage and vision loss, and that any injury suffered by plaintiffs may be unrelated to semaglutide exposure.

This is a familiar pharmaceutical defense attorney playbook: frame the condition as multifactorial and shift the focus away from the drug’s role. But it is a risky strategy in front of a jury. Plaintiffs’ lawyers will argue that Novo Nordisk had an obligation to warn even if the drug only slightly increased the baseline risk, especially since patients with diabetes are already vulnerable to ocular damage and would be even more cautious if fully informed.

This line of defense also ignores the emerging scientific consensus that NAION events in semaglutide patients are occurring at a higher-than-expected rate. Some of the most severe injuries are showing up in people with no significant prior eye issues. If the litigation progresses to expert testimony and case-specific discovery, juries may not be sympathetic to a company that downplays catastrophic injuries as just a coincidence.

It is an early sign that the NAION litigation will not just mirror the gastroparesis MDL but could evolve into its own battleground, with distinct scientific questions, plaintiff demographics, and a higher potential for headline verdicts.

May 19, 2025 – Ozempic Vision Loss Lawsuits Filed Over NAION Side Effect

The Ozempic litigation is expanding. Multiple vision loss lawsuits have now been filed against Novo Nordisk by patients who developed non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION). This serious and potentially irreversible eye condition can lead to blindness after using Ozempic.

These new Ozempic lawsuits allege that Novo Nordisk failed to warn patients and doctors about the risk of NAION, despite evidence from clinical trials, post-marketing surveillance, and adverse event reports. These cases are especially troubling because the current label for Ozempic does not include any warning about vision loss or NAION, even though the scientific literature and real-world reports suggest a link between semaglutide (the active ingredient in Ozempic) and optic nerve damage.

These vision loss claims are expected to grow. Similar lawsuits involving Wegovy and Rybelsus, two other semaglutide drugs that Novo Nordisk manufactures, are also in development. All three medications are part of the GLP-1 receptor agonist drug class and share similar pharmacological profiles.

From a litigation standpoint, the argument is clear: patients were never given the chance to make an informed decision, and many never would have agreed to use Ozempic had they been properly warned. Plaintiffs’ lawyers are pointing to the company’s well-chronoled aggressive marketing tactics, including off-label promotion of Ozempic for weight loss, as further evidence that patient safety took a backseat to profit.

For attorneys already tracking Ozempic stomach paralysis or gallbladder injury claims, these vision loss lawsuits represent a new and severe injury theory.  NAION lawsuits may carry much higher settlement amounts due to the life-altering nature of blindness and the complete absence of warnings.

April 22, 2025 – Oral Arguments Today

Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly moved to dismiss the majority of claims in these lawsuits. Their argument, ignoring the depth and detail already provided in the master complaint, is that many allegations were too vague to support legal action.

This does not track. We are talking about specific gastrointestinal injuries. These are not boilerplate allegations. Plaintiffs argue the complaint specifically references recurring themes in the companies’ advertising strategies that overstated safety profiles and misled both patients and prescribers.  This is a hard argument to refute, even for people who wholeheartedly support these drugs.

Contrary to the defendants’ characterization of a “kitchen sink” approach, the negligence claim deliberately includes a wide range of conduct to account for differing state laws that will apply across individual cases. Far from being unfocused, this strategy is a necessary feature of complex, nationwide litigation. It is a feature, not a bug.

Moreover, the assertion that the complaint lacks specific misrepresentations overlooks the reality that these drugs were marketed to the public in a uniform, heavily branded manner. Plaintiffs contend that these promotions, which saturated digital, print, and broadcast media, consistently omitted meaningful warnings—an omission that became especially problematic as internal safety signals and international regulatory developments surfaced.

It is hard to see the judge ruling against the plaintiffs. But it is only one judge who makes the decision. Anything is possible.

April 21, 2025 – New Study

A CDC-supported study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that semaglutide-related emergency room visits occurred an estimated 25,000 times between 2022 and 2023, with the majority of these visits occurring in 2023. The majority of these visits involved semaglutide alone, almost always in injectable form, and were triggered by serious gastrointestinal issues or hypoglycemia. Many cases required hospitalization.

Defendants will downplay the findings by characterizing the overall rate of visits as “rare,” but that term does not accurately reflect the severity of the outcomes. Nearly 40 percent of hypoglycemia cases and 15 percent of gastrointestinal cases resulted in hospital stays. These are not minor side effects. They are serious medical events that are risks that need to be clearly communicated to patients and doctors.

April 9, 2025 – The Battle Over Gastroparesis Without a Gastric Emptying Study

Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk are trying to shut down a big part of the plaintiffs’ case by blocking two key experts from testifying. These experts, Dr. Daniel Raines and Dr. Eliot Siegel, have been helping plaintiffs connect their use of drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro to gastroparesis, which, as most everyone reading this knows, slows down digestion and causes severe symptoms like nausea, vomiting, and stomach pain.

The defendants argue that unless a plaintiff has undergone a specific medical test—a gastric emptying study—to objectively confirm the diagnosis, the entire opinion should be dismissed.  The defense is basically saying that symptoms alone are not enough and that relying on clinical judgment or timing, like the fact that symptoms started while on the drug and went away when it was stopped, does not meet the legal standards for reliable scientific evidence. They’re leaning heavily on medical guidelines that recommend testing and framing the experts’ methods as unscientific and too vague to be trusted in court.

What this really is, though, is a strategic move to disqualify potentially hundreds of claims from people who did undergo formal testing, often because their doctors believed it was not necessary once the symptoms subsided. If the court agrees with the defense, a huge number of plaintiffs could be excluded just because they didn’t go through a specific diagnostic process, even though their symptoms and timelines strongly point to the drugs as the cause.

A ruling that excludes expert testimony ignores how medicine is actually practiced. In real life, doctors often rely on symptoms, clinical judgment, and how a patient responds to stopping a medication, especially for drug-induced conditions that are temporary and resolve without invasive tests. Many plaintiffs did not undergo formal testing. Why?  Many reasons.  One big reason many victims tell us is that their symptoms improved once they stopped taking GLP-1 drugs, and their doctors saw no need for further workup.

So if the court requires objective testing in every case, it effectively penalizes plaintiffs for following standard medical advice, shuts the courthouse doors to valid claims, and sets an unrealistic and unfair legal bar that benefits drug companies at the expense of genuinely harmed patients.

March 17, 2025 – Eli Lilly Motion

Eli Lilly has filed a motion requesting that the court rule that a reliable diagnosis of gastroparesis must be based on contemporaneous objective testing.

The motion further seeks to exclude testimony from plaintiffs’ experts who argue that a gastroparesis diagnosis can be reliable without such testing. The company argues that objective testing is necessary to ensure medical reliability and prevent speculative diagnoses, which could undermine the scientific rigor of the case.