MDL Judge Schedules Ozempic Lawsuit Status Conferences Throughout 2025

With the first Ozempic lawsuit bellwether trials not expected to begin until at least late 2026 or early 2027, the court will address motions to dismiss and other “cross cutting” issues in 2025.

The U.S. District Judge presiding over hundreds of federal lawsuits over side effects of Ozempic, Wegovy and other similar diabetes and weight loss drugs has scheduled a series of status conferences in 2025, as the parties address early motions to dismiss and discovery focused on a series of “cross cutting” issues that are expected to impact large numbers of claims.

There are currently about 1,300 product liability lawsuits being pursued against the manufacturers of Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Zebpound, Trulicity and other drugs that are part of a new class of medications known as glucacon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists, each raising similar allegations that drug manufacturers failed to warn users and the medical community about serious gastrointestinal side effects linked to the drugs’ delayed gastric emptying effects.

However, given the widespread use of the drugs, which some estimates suggest have been prescribed to about 12% of the U.S. population in recent years, it is expected that the size and scope of the litigation will rapidly increase in 2025, with tens of thousands of individuals likely to present claims after developing gastroparesis, stomach paralysis, ileus, intestinal obstructions and other complications.

Given common questions of fact and law raised in the Ozempic lawsuits, Wegovy lawsuits,  Mounjaro lawsuits, and other complaints filed throughout the federal court system involving the class of drugs, all federal GLP-1 lawsuits have been centralized as part of a multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where they are currently being overseen by U.S. District Judge Karen Marston for coordinated and centralized pretrial proceedings.

Before scheduling a series of representative “bellwether” trials, which are typically selected early in MDL proceedings to help the parties gauge how juries may respond to certain evidence and testimony that will be repeated through the litigation, Judge Marston decided to focus the initial discovery and pretrial proceedings on resolving a number of “cross cutting” issues in the Ozempic lawsuits.

These issues include determining whether plaintiffs will be required to provide specific gastroparesis diagnostic testing to establish that they have suffered that specific stomach injury. In addition, the court will decide whether the lawsuits are preempted by federal law and evaluate the general causation evidence linking the Ozempic drugs to the claimed gastrointestinal injuries, including gastroparesis, small bowel obstruction, ileus and gallbladder injuries.

On December 3, Judge Marston issued a scheduling order (PDF) outlining deadlines for presenting motions and briefs regarding the preemption issue, indicating that the drug manufacturers must file any motion to dismiss the master complaint by January 24, 2025.

This motion is expected to include arguments that federal law prevented the drug makers from independently updating the drug warning labels, and therefore the state-law based failure to warn claims are preempted.

According to the order, Plaintiffs must file their response to any motion to dismiss by March 18, 2025, with Defendants deadline for filing a reply by April 14, 2025. The court is then expected to schedule oral arguments, and a decision on this first “cross cutting” issue could be resolved by the end of the year.

To address the issue of general causation, Judge Marston previously released an order (PDF) setting a fact discovery deadline of July 2, 2025, with each side exchanging expert reports throughout July and August 2025.

The parties are scheduled to meet with Judge Marston on December 17, and last week the Court issued another order (PDF) establishing a series of monthly Ozempic lawsuit status conferences in  2025, including:

• January 14, 2025
• February 24, 2025
• March 18, 2025
• April 21, 2025
• May 19, 2025
• June 24, 2025
• July 29, 2025
• September 3, 2025

As a result of the current schedule, it is not expected that the first Ozempic lawsuits will go before a federal jury until at least late 2026 or early 2027, which may help the parties negotiate Ozempic settlements to resolve large numbers of claims in the future.