Wegovy Lawsuit: NAION Vision Loss, Gastroparesis, and Eligibility

More than 3,700 people are suing Novo Nordisk in a federal Wegovy lawsuit, claiming the weight-loss injection caused severe gastrointestinal injuries or sudden vision loss that the company failed to adequately warn about. As of June 2026, the cases are consolidated in two multidistrict litigations in Pennsylvania, no trials have taken place, and no settlements have been reached.

What Plaintiffs Are Claiming

Wegovy contains semaglutide, a GLP-1 receptor agonist that works partly by slowing how quickly the stomach empties. Plaintiffs argue Novo Nordisk knew or should have known that mechanism could cause debilitating conditions far beyond the nausea and mild digestive discomfort described on the label, and that the company kept those risks off doctors’ and patients’ radar.

The claims break down into three main legal theories:

Failure to warn about the severity and likelihood of gastroparesis, intestinal obstruction, vision loss, gallbladder disease, pancreatitis, and deep vein thrombosis.
Negligent misrepresentation, on the theory that Novo Nordisk downplayed serious risks in marketing and provider communications, characterizing gastrointestinal side effects as mild and temporary.
Design defect, arguing the drug is unreasonably dangerous and the manufacturer should be strictly liable for resulting injuries.

One firm involved in the litigation has also alleged that Novo Nordisk targeted teenagers and minority populations with messaging that positioned the drug as safe without sufficient disclosure of risks.¹

Gastroparesis and Other GI Injuries

Gastroparesis, sometimes called stomach paralysis, is by far the most common injury alleged. According to a breakdown Novo Nordisk’s counsel gave in January 2026, about 75% of the federal cases involve gastroparesis, followed by ileus (intestinal blockage) at 18% and gallbladder complications at 8%.² Some lawsuits allege more than one injury.

A 2023 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that users of semaglutide and liraglutide experienced gastroparesis nearly three times as often as users of another weight-loss drug, bupropion-naltrexone.³ While Wegovy’s label has long referenced “delayed gastric emptying” in its drug-interaction section, plaintiffs contend it never explicitly warned about gastroparesis at the time most of them were prescribed the medication.⁴

Gallbladder risk also appears in the clinical trial data. According to FDA-approved labeling, gallstones occurred in 1.6% of adults taking Wegovy compared to 0.7% on placebo, and the gap was wider in adolescents at 3.8% versus 0%.⁵ A 2025 meta-analysis of 55 randomized trials in Gastroenterology confirmed that GLP-1 drugs increase the risk of gallstones and acid reflux, though the authors found little or no effect on most other gastrointestinal or biliary conditions studied.⁶

The FDA has since required Wegovy’s label to warn about ileus (September 2023), severe gastrointestinal adverse reactions with a precaution against use in patients with severe gastroparesis (November 2024), and intestinal obstruction with severe constipation (October 2025).⁴³ The timing of those changes is itself contested in the lawsuits, because most plaintiffs were prescribed the drug before the current warnings existed.

Vision Loss (NAION)

A separate group of lawsuits alleges Wegovy and other GLP-1 drugs can cause non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION, a disruption of blood flow to the optic nerve that can produce sudden and permanent vision loss. A 2024 study by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Mass General Brigham, published in JAMA Ophthalmology, found that diabetic patients on semaglutide had roughly a four-fold higher risk of NAION compared with those on other diabetes medications. For overweight patients without diabetes, the risk was more than seven times higher.⁷

The European Medicines Agency completed its own review in June 2025, concluding NAION is a “very rare” side effect affecting up to one additional person per 10,000 patient-years, and recommended updating product information throughout Europe.⁸

Where the Cases Are Being Heard

Most of the lawsuits are consolidated in two federal multidistrict litigations in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, both overseen by Judge Karen S. Marston:

MDL 3094 covers gastrointestinal injury claims, including gastroparesis, ileus, and gallbladder disease. As of June 1, 2026, there are 3,763 pending actions.⁹
MDL 3163 covers NAION vision loss claims. It was created in December 2025, and by June 2026 held more than 100 cases.³

The defendants are Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, whose drugs Mounjaro and Trulicity are also GLP-1 agonists. Both companies deny the allegations.⁹ The caseload has grown quickly, from roughly 350 cases in August 2024 to more than 3,000 by January 2026, and plaintiffs’ lead counsel projected in late 2024 that the MDL could eventually reach tens of thousands.¹⁰

Two parallel multicounty litigations were established in New Jersey state court in October 2025, one for GI claims and one for NAION, both in Bergen County Superior Court under Judge Gregg A. Padovano.¹¹ The first semaglutide lawsuit filed in the country, Bjorklund v. Novo Nordisk, was brought in Louisiana on August 2, 2023, and remains ongoing there.¹²

Why This Is Not a Class Action

Online searches for a “Wegovy class action” turn up plenty of pages, but no class action exists. This is a mass tort. An MDL consolidates cases for pretrial efficiency, including shared discovery and common rulings, but each plaintiff’s injuries, damages, and circumstances are assessed individually.⁵ If a case eventually goes to trial, it goes as one plaintiff’s claim, not on behalf of a group. That means you would file your own individual lawsuit rather than opt into a class.

Where the Litigation Stands Now

The cases are still in pretrial stages. In August 2025, Judge Marston issued a significant ruling on gastroparesis proof: the court held that gastroparesis claims generally must be supported by a gastric emptying study in the plaintiff’s medical records, siding with Novo Nordisk’s argument that the test is required for a reliable diagnosis.¹³ Because an estimated 95% of the cases involve gastroparesis, this ruling could reshape the litigation substantially.

In May 2026, Novo Nordisk filed motions to dismiss and moved separately to exclude testimony from all five of the plaintiffs’ causation experts, arguing the experts are unqualified and that existing FDA-approved labeling adequately protects patients.² Those motions have not been decided. For the vision loss track, Judge Marston ordered a “Science Day” in June 2026, a non-adversarial session where both sides present the underlying science on GLP-1 drugs and NAION to the court.¹⁴

No settlements have been reached. No bellwether trials have been scheduled. Attorneys involved estimate bellwether trials could begin in late 2026 or early 2027, depending on pretrial developments.⁵ Projected settlement values, based on legal-expert estimates and not any actual offers, range from roughly $100,000 to over $1 million per case depending on severity, with blindness claims at the higher end.³ Serious settlement discussions are generally considered premature until bellwether verdicts give both sides a sense of how juries respond.

Who Can File and by When

The MDL is still accepting new cases. In general, an eligible plaintiff took a branded GLP-1 drug prescribed by a doctor and later developed a serious condition that was not adequately disclosed on the label at the time of the prescription. The two tracks are gastrointestinal injuries (gastroparesis, ileus, or severe GI reactions requiring hospitalization) and NAION vision loss.³

People who used compounded or off-brand versions of semaglutide are not currently eligible.¹ For a gastroparesis claim, the August 2025 ruling means you will generally need a gastric emptying study in your medical records to support the diagnosis.¹³

Deadlines matter. The statute of limitations varies by state but is typically two to three years from when the injury was discovered or reasonably should have been discovered, and some states allow as little as one year.³ If you think you may have a claim, the clock in your state is what determines whether you still can.

1
Motley Rice. Wegovy Lawsuit
2
Robert King Law Firm. Wegovy Lawsuit
3
Drugwatch. Wegovy Lawsuit
4
Motley Rice. FDA Warning for Ozempic and Wegovy
5
Wisner Baum. Wegovy Lawsuit
6
Gastroenterology. GLP-1 Receptor Agonists and Gastrointestinal Adverse Events
7
Seeger Weiss. GLP-1 NAION Vision Loss Lawsuit
8
European Medicines Agency. PRAC Concludes Eye Condition NAION Very Rare Side Effect of Semaglutide Medicines
9
U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania. MDL 3094 – GLP-1 RAs Products Liability Litigation (GI Injuries)
10
Miller & Zois. Ozempic Gallbladder Lawsuit
11
New Jersey Courts. Multicounty Litigation Designation Orders
12
Constant Law. Ozempic, Wegovy, and Semaglutide Lawsuit
13
U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Memorandum on Cross-Cutting Issue No. 1, MDL No. 3094
14
Nigh Goldenberg. GLP-1 NAION Lawsuit