Wegovy Lawsuit Indicates Ileus, Gallstones, Other Side Effects Caused by Weight Loss Drug

When Ashley Kimes was prescribed Wegovy for weight loss, she indicates in a recently filed lawsuit that neither she nor her physician were aware that side effects could cause her to develop painful gallstones and a severe intestinal obstruction, known as ileus.

In a complaint (PDF) filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on November 7, Kimes indicates that Novo Nordisk knew or should have known about the potential Wegovy side effects that some users may experience, but failed to provide adequate label warnings for patients or the medical community.

Wegovy (semaglutide) is a weight loss drug that uses the same active ingredient as Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster diabetes treatment Ozempic. Both are members of a class of medications known as glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists, which also include Mounjaro, Zepbound, Trulicity, Byetta and Victoza.

Novo Nordisk first introduced Wegovy to the market in June 2021, as a prescription medication that promotes weight loss, by delaying gastric emptying, which causes users to feel full longer.

Amid aggressive advertisements that have promoted the drug as safe and effective, with few serious side effects, Kimes indicates that she was one of millions of Americans who elected to use the medication to help her lose weight and improve the quality of her life. However, she now joins a growing number of former users pursuing Wegovy lawsuits and Ozempic lawsuits against Novo Nordisk, indicating that the drug maker placed its desire for profits before consumer safety.

According to her lawsuit, Kimes, of West Virginia, was prescribed Wegovy in January 2022 for weight management. However, about a year later, in December of that year, Kimes was taken to a hospital emergency room due to severe abdominal pain, nausea and diarrhea.

She was diagnosed with biliary colic and acute cholelithiasis, more commonly known as gallstones, after undergoing an ultrasound. In December 2022, doctors determined that her gallbladder had to be removed entirely.

Following the surgery, doctors discovered Kimes also suffered from ileus, which occurs when the intestines lose their ability to contract properly, resulting in an inability to move food through the digestive system, which can result in intestinal blockages.

“As a result, on December 13, 2022, Plaintiff underwent a second abdominal surgery, which included a cauterization to control her bile leak and a complete washout with a drain placed to ease her abdominal pain and to solve her ileus,” the lawsuit states. “At all times material to the above, the Wegovy label failed to adequately warn Plaintiff and her medical provider of the true risks of taking Wegovy, including cholelithiasis, and Plaintiff has been severely injured as a direct result thereof.”

Kimes presents claims for negligence, failure to warn, design defect, negligent misrepresentation and marketing, and violations of Pennsylvania consumer protection laws, seeking both compensatory and punitive damages.

November 2024 Wegovy Lawsuit Update

Given common questions of fact and law raised in a growing number of the claims now being pursued by former users of Wegovy, Ozempic and similar medications, 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 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

To help manage the litigation, Judge Marston has directed the parties to focus  early discovery on “cross cutting” issues that will impact a number of claims, including general causation, 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.

After those issues have been adjudicated, 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 Wegovy settlement negotiations that would avoid the need for each individual case to be set for trial in the future.