Ozempic NAION Vision Loss Risks Confirmed in Another Study

New research appears to corroborate growing concerns that Ozempic and Wegovy side effects could be linked to vision changes and blindness.

In a study published in medRxiv on December 11, researchers have drawn a strong link between the popular weight loss and diabetes drugs to non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION), which is a rare eye condition where the optic nerve suffers from insufficient blood flow, leading to sudden and often irreversible vision loss.

According to the latest research, millions of individuals who have been prescribed Ozempic or Wegovy could face double the risk of developing NAION.

Concerns over Ozempic and Wegovy vision loss side effects were first raised in July, after Harvard researchers published a similar study, which found that patients had more than seven times the risk of Ozempic and Wegovy vision changes than those given different medications. Those with type 2 diabetes faced the highest odds of NAION, that report found.

Ozempic and Wegovy are glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs), which both contain the same active ingredient semaglutide. Ozempic was originally approved in 2017 for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. However, when the manufacturer, Novo Nordisk, discovered it also carried significant weight loss effects, it introduced the higher dose version, Wegovy, which is approved as a diet drug.

In recent years, both drugs have been linked to gastrointestinal problems such as gastroparesis, or stomach paralysis, ileus and intestinal blockages.

Due to the drug makers’ failure to adequately warn about the risk of these side effects, thousands of former users are now pursuing Ozempic lawsuits and Wegovy lawsuits against Novo Nordisk, each raising similar allegations that the manufacturers placed a desire for increased profits above consumer safety by failing to research and disclose gastroparesis side effects users may experience.

For the new study, a team of researchers from Denmark indicated they were interested in growing concerns about a potential link between semaglutide use and NAION.

Researchers looked at data on more than 60,000 Ozempic and Wegovy users and compared them to users of other diabetes drugs. They found that the GLP-1 users had more than twice the risk of developing NAION than those taking sodium-glucose-co-transporter 2 (SGLT-2) inhibitors, which include diabetes drugs such as Farxiga, Invokana and Xigduo.

The team estimated that Ozempic and Wegovy use represented a 1.41 increase in NAION events per 10,000 person-years.

“Our findings show an association between use of semaglutide for type 2 diabetes and risk of NAION,” the researchers concluded. “However, the absolute risk remains low.”

December 2024 Ozempic Lawsuit Update

The findings come as a growing number of Ozempic and Wegovy lawsuits, as well as lawsuits over other GLP-1 RA drugs, such as Mounjaro, Zepbound, Victoza and Trulicity, have been consolidated for coordinated pretrial proceedings under U.S. District Judge Karen S. Marston in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Judge Marston has directed the parties to focus in the early stages of the litigation on “cross cutting” issues, which will impact a large number of claims. This includes discovery and pretrial motions regarding general causation evidence about the link between Ozempic and ileus, gastroparesis and other injuries, as well as questions about 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.

Following the resolution of those issues, Judge Marston is expected to direct the parties to select representative GLP-1 lawsuits for early bellwether test trials, to help gauge how juries will respond to evidence and expert testimony likely to be repeated throughout the litigation.

While the outcomes of such early test trials are not binding on other claims, they could help potentially facilitate an Ozempic settlement agreement that would avoid the need for each individual case to be set for trial in the future.