GLP-1 Wrongful Death Lawsuit Claims Compounder Sold Contaminated Meds

Compounding pharmacy has been the subject of numerous state and federal enforcement actions over the low quality of its products.

The family of a Texas woman says she died of an overdose after being given a contaminated, compounded version of Ozempic by a company that has long been under fire by federal regulators.

The complaint (PDF) was filed on April 10 by Lauren Stash and Don Rhodes, both on behalf of themselves and the estate of Shawna Stash, who died in April 2024. The lawsuit names Empower Clinic Services LLC, doing business as Empower Pharmacy, as the defendant and seeks class action status for other customers of the compounding pharmacy.

Shawna Stash was prescribed injectable semaglutide/cyanocobalamin compounded by Empower Pharmacy. Her family believes the compounded medication contained chemicals and contaminants that led to Stash’s death.

GLP-1 Health Risks

Semaglutide is the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy, which are used to treat Type 2 diabetes and obesity, respectively. It is part of a class of medications known as glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists, which also include Mounjaro, Zepbound, Trulicity, Rybelsus, Saxenda and Victoza.

The drugs have skyrocketed in popularity over the last couple years, pushing the limits of Novo Nordisk to keep up with supply, leading to compounders like Empower moving to profit from the backlog.

However, even the officially licensed products have come under scrutiny for a variety of potential health side effects that were not initially disclosed on the drug labels, including stomach paralysis, intestinal obstructions, vision loss and other problems. These issues have led to a growing number of Ozempic lawsuits, Wegovy lawsuits and Mounjaro lawsuits filed nationwide in recent years. Each complaint involves similar allegations that Novo Nordisk and other manufacturers failed to properly warn consumers about the potential health risks of these drugs.

GLP-1 Compounding Lawsuit

According to the lawsuit, Stash was first prescribed compounded semaglutide in February 2023, and received the injections until at least January 2024, just a couple months before her death. However, prior to Stash’s death, the family says she was hospitalized for nearly a month, telling healthcare professionals that she had just increased her dosage a few weeks prior.

The family says she died of a semaglutide overdose due to the poor quality of the compounded product, pointing to numerous complaints by other patients and enforcement actions by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as evidence that the compounding pharmacy was selling poor quality products.

A year after Stash’s death, the FDA issued a warning letter to Empower and Arta Shaun Noorian, the company’s chief executive officer, warning that the pharmacy’s drug products failed to meet Federal Drug and Cosmetic Act standards. FDA inspectors found that Empower’s drugs were not stored in sterile conditions, which could lead to them becoming contaminated.

Additionally, the states of California, Alabama, Colorado, Florida and Pennsylvania have issued citations or taken other actions against the compounding pharmacy. It was also the subject of a lawsuit by Eli Lilly in July 2025 over allegedly selling illegal counterfeit versions of its Mounjaro and Zepbound GLP-1 drugs.

The family points to these actions as proof that Empower knew or should have known that its compounded drugs had quality concerns but continued to sell them to maximize profits at the cost of patient safety.

“Still, Empower continues to advertise the quality and safety of its products to increase profits at the expense of patient safety. And so, Plaintiffs and other similarly situated consumers—reported by Empower to be over 15,000 consumers each day—purchased Empower’s medications believing that they are purchasing quality, sterile medications that are safe for consumption. They were misled—and knowingly so.”

– Lauren Stash et al v. Empower Clinical Services LLC

Stash’s children, who filed the lawsuit, seek to get the lawsuit certified for class action in order to represent those who were injured after purchasing Empower’s allegedly contaminated products, whether they were sold directly by the pharmacy, or through other sellers, including healthcare providers or other pharmacies that sourced their medications from the manufacturer.

Stash’s family presents claims of breach of warranty, violations of Texas Deceptive Trade Practices, fraud, negligence and gross negligence, strict liability, wrongful death and survival action.

GLP-1 Stomach Paralysis Lawsuits

While this claim is filed against an independent compounding pharmacy, the actual manufactures of Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy, Zepbound and similar drugs face their own growing body of GLP-1 litigation over claims they failed to warn consumers about the risks of gastrointestinal issues like gastroparesis, which is a form of stomach paralysis.

To date, more than 3,300 GLP-1 stomach paralysis lawsuits have been consolidated into a multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania before U.S. District Judge Karen Marston for coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

Judge Marston indicates she and the parties will select a small group of representative cases to serve as potential bellwether trials that would allow them to see how juries will respond to evidence and testimony likely to be repeated throughout the litigation.

GLP-1 Vision Loss Lawsuits

Novo Nordisk also faces a growing number of GLP-1 vision loss lawsuits specifically tied to Ozempic and Wegovy after studies linked semaglutide to an increased risk of rapid onset vision loss known as non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION). 

Judge Marston is also overseeing a federal MDL for these lawsuits, but it has been kept separate from the stomach paralysis claims. She is expected to organize similar early test trials for the GLP-1 vision loss litigation. Those cases are at a much earlier stage than claims involving stomach paralysis.

Although the outcomes of these trials will not be binding on other complaints, they will be closely watched to see what kinds of payouts juries award to plaintiffs, which are likely to have a significant impact on negotiations. However, if no settlement is reached following the bellwether trials, Judge Marston is likely to remand the cases back to their originating districts for individual trial dates.

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