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Law firms representing people who claim that they were not adequately warned about the side effects of the GLP-1 class of weight loss drugs are trying to consolidate the lawsuits in a Louisiana federal court, Reuters reported Wednesday.
Since August, the claimants have filed about 20 such cases against Novo Nordisk (NVO) and Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY), the makers of GLP-1 receptor agonists Wegovy and Mounjaro.
The lawsuits allege that the companies played down or didn’t warn consumers about GLP-1-related side effects, such as gastroparesis or stomach paralysis.
Attorneys from Morgan & Morgan, which represents nine such lawsuits, filed a motion on Friday seeking the go-ahead from the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) to centralize the litigation in the Western District of Louisiana. JPML is scheduled to hold its next hearing in January.
If granted, the cases will be sent to U.S. District Judge James Cain in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where the first lawsuit over the side effects of GLP-1 drugs was filed in August. Cain is currently reviewing the companies’ bid to dismiss the case.
Cameron Stephenson, an attorney for law firm Levin Papantonio Rafferty, said his firm is investigating 100 other cases, with one lawsuit already filed. Stephenson indicated his firm’s support for the MDL and bid to send suits to the Western District of Louisiana.