Evidence Linking Ozempic and Gastroparesis, Ileus, Other Injuries Will Be Addressed In Early MDL Discovery

Court will examine general causation, along with other “cross cutting” issues, before selecting any individual Ozempic gastroparesis lawsuits for trial workup.

The U.S. District Judge presiding over all federal Ozempic lawsuits and Wegovy lawsuits has confirmed that the court will examine the strength of evidence linking the popular diabetes and weight loss drugs to gastroparesis, ileus and other injuries raised in the litigation, prior to moving forward with case-specific discovery and early bellwether trials.

There are currently hundreds of product liability lawsuits being pursued against the makers of Ozempic, Wegovy and other similar medications, which are part of a new class of treatments known as glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1s). Each of the cases raise similar allegations, indicating that drug makers failed to disclose serious gastrointestinal side effects that users may experience.

Given common questions of fact and law raised in the claims, all federal GLP-1 lawsuits have been centralized as part of an MDL, or multidistrict litigation, where U.S. District Judge Karen S. Marston is overseeing coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

Judge Marston previously indicated that early discovery would focus on two other “cross cutting” issues, including whether the claims are preempted by federal law and whether plaintiffs will be required to provide specific testing evidence to establish they suffered an injury. However, an order issued last week confirmed that the court will also address general causation during this first phase of discovery.

General causation involves an evaluation of whether the plaintiffs have sufficient evidence to establish that the drugs at issue in the litigation are capable of causing the underlying injuries experienced by plaintiffs.

In a case management order (PDF) issued on October 25, Judge Marston established several deadlines for completing fact discovery and expert reports relevant to the “cross cutting” issues the court will address prior to allowing any case-specific discovery or selecting representative claims for bellwether trials.

After the court decided to split out early discovery and motions practice focused on the issues of preemption and the need for gastroparesis diagnostic testing, Judge Marston indicates that the parties agreed that this initial phase should also include general causation for gastroparesis, ileus, small bowel obstruction and gallbladder injuries.

Judge Marston also noted there are a growing number of cases involving deep vein thrombosis injuries (DVT), but those lawsuits have not yet been folded into the larger MDL, a decision which would have to be made by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. However, if lawsuits involving DVT from Ozempic and Wegovy are added to the MDL, Judge Marston indicates that the court will also consider general causation for that injury.

The case management order indicates that fact discovery on the cross cutting issues will continue through July 2, 2025, with expert reports exchanged by the parties throughout the second half of next year. Motions to exclude certain expert opinions must be filed by October 27, 2025, with motions for summary judgment due two days later.

The parties will exchange briefing on these motions through at least January 2026, and the court will then schedule a series of hearings to determine whether the litigation is able to move forward. However, the pretrial schedule makes it clear that the first individual Ozempic and Wegovy bellwether lawsuits are unlikely to reach a jury until at least late 2026, or 2027.

While the outcomes of such early test trials are not binding on other claims, they are often critical to help the parties gauge how juries are likely to respond to certain evidence and testimony that will be repeated throughout a litigation, potentially facilitating Ozempic settlement negotiations that would avoid the need for each individual case to be set for trial in the future.