ANALYSIS: Ozempic Claims Shoot Up, but for How Long?

July marked the beginning of the first wave of Ozempic-related pharmaceutical liability case filings, and as of August, it shows no signs of slowing down. This shouldn’t come as a surprise—the writing was on the wall after the popular weight loss drug’s spike in popularity was followed by reports of stomach-churning side effects. But while it’s still early days, pharmaceutical litigation trends from the past couple of years suggest that Ozempic won’t spur as much litigation as other recently litigated pharmaceutical products.

From Jan. 1 to Aug. 31, 854 complaints have been filed against Novo Nordisk—Ozempic’s manufacturer—in federal courts under the pharmaceutical personal injury nature of suit code, according to a Bloomberg Law dockets search.

As of Aug. 31, 24 of those dockets have a viewable complaint attached, and 22 of them mention “Ozempic.” This may only represent a small portion of the total dockets, but it isn’t unreasonable to assume that most of the 854 complaints without viewable attachments are predicated on Ozempic injuries as well.

Trends in pharmaceutical personal injury cases filed in federal courts over the last two years show that the prescription-related Ozempic claims account for a small portion of personal injury claims when compared to the more voluminous complaints based on injuries sustained from over-the-counter products. Should Ozempic claims follow the same filing pattern as other pharmaceutical litigation trends discussed below, it’s likely that this wave of filings has peaked and will slow down by the end of the year. Whether this is the first of several waves remains to be seen.

Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder Litigation

The 854 complaints against Novo Nordisk are just a portion of the over 5,500 pharmaceutical injury complaints filed against the 10 largest pharmaceutical companies year to date. The lion’s share of cases were filed against Johnson & Johnson, and they relate to its talcum powder products, which have been alleged to contain trace amounts of asbestos leading to mesothelioma, ovarian cancer, and other injuries.

Over 2,600 pharmaceutical personal injury complaints were filed against J&J just in March of this year. Of those dockets, 57 have viewable complaints attached and 49 mention talcum powder, indicating that most of these complaints relate to talcum powder. It isn’t clear what caused the large spike in March, and it’s possible that many of these are refilings of complaints made in previous years.

For Johnson & Johnson, 2024 is just the tip of the talcum-powder-covered iceberg: The pharma giant’s personal injury claims spiked in Q3 last year, with over 15,400 complaints filed in August and September, making J&J the biggest target for pharmaceutical injury claims compared to its competitors.

The large jump in lawsuits beginning in August 2023 was likely a result of J&J’s unsuccessful bid for bankruptcy, launched two years prior. In October 2021, J&J spun off its talcum powder division and had that division file for bankruptcy in an alleged attempt to delay litigation.

In October 2022, the bankruptcy court issued an automatic stay in proceedings, which kept plaintiffs from filing new claims. The Third Circuit rejected the bankruptcy bid in March of last year, which prompted the spin-off to file for bankruptcy a second time. Five months later, a federal bankruptcy court dismissed the second attempt and lifted the two-year stay, opening the floodgates for new filings in the third quarter of 2023.

Now, J&J is making a third attempt at bankruptcy protection in Texas to resolve tens of thousands of baby powder suits after being blocked twice by New Jersey courts.

In terms of pharmaceutical injury litigation, talcum powder claims dominated the third quarter of 2023, right off the heels of a relatively quiet second quarter. But talcum powder wasn’t the only over-the-counter product caught in the crosshairs last year.

Zantac Litigation

Zantac was a prescription drug approved by the FDA in 1983 to treat acid reflux using the active ingredient ranitidine. After the patent expired in 1997, generic versions of the drug became available and in 2004, Pfizer obtained FDA approval to sell over-the-counter versions of the medication.

Over its 40-year history, ownership of the Zantac brand has switched hands multiple times. Pharmaceutical producers Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Sanofi have all owned the brand at one point in time, and Novartis manufactured generic versions of the drug.

In April 2020, the FDA issued a recall of all ranitidine products after it was discovered that levels of known carcinogens in ranitidine increase over time under normal storage conditions.

Zantac-related lawsuits started hitting federal district courts following the recall. In 2020, 391 pharmaceutical personal injury dockets were filed mentioning “Zantac” or “ranitidine,” according to a Bloomberg Law dockets search. In 2021 and 2022, an additional 615 and 278 were filed respectively.

In December 2022, the judge presiding over the MDL proceedings dismissed over 2,000 complaints on summary judgment on the grounds that there wasn’t enough evidence to connect the plaintiffs’ alleged injuries to the medication. In 2023, litigation skyrocketed with over 10,000 dockets mentioning Zantac or ranitidine filed, most of which were in the first quarter.

This sudden surge in filings is likely due to the judge’s pretrial order allowing many of the plaintiffs previously dismissed to refile individually and extending the tolling of the statute of limitations to April 2023. The small blip last October and November was likely due to filings relating to Taxotere, an unrelated pharmaceutical product manufactured by Sanofi.

In May of this year, Pfizer agreed to pay up to $250 million to settle more than 10,000 of these cases, while still maintaining its position that Zantac injury claims aren’t supported by reliable science.

Pharmaceutical injury litigation trends over the last two years show that over-the-counter-related injuries account for most filings, which are usually brought within a one-to-three-month window. Considering Ozempic’s status as a prescription-only drug, it’s likely that complaints will continue to trickle in for the foreseeable future, but won’t result in large spikes on the scale of the Zantac and talcum powder cases.

The full report is available here for Bloomberg Law subscribers. Nonsubscribers can download a free copy of the report here. The individually published analysis pieces can be found here.

Bloomberg Law subscribers can find more pharmaceutical-related federal dockets by using Bloomberg Dockets Search.

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