Courtney Jorstad  |  February 7, 2014

Category: Consumer News

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Byetta thyroid cancer lawsuitA motion to consolidate all the Byetta lawsuits, alleging that the type-2 diabetes medication causes thyroid cancer, into one multidistrict litigation was filed on Jan. 28.

Elizabeth Childress, one of the plaintiffs who has sued Byetta drug makers Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Eli Lilly & Co., is asking that the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transfer all lawsuits alleging Byetta caused patients to develop thyroid cancer to California federal court to be overseen by U.S. District Judge Anthony Battaglia.

Childress is asking that the federal court in San Diego have jurisdiction over these cases as it is the same court and judge who is presiding over the multidistrict litigation (MDL) concerning Byetta patients who allegedly developed pancreatic cancer from Byetta and similar type-2 diabetes medications such as Januvia, Janument and Victoza.

There are currently 36 lawsuits filed by Byetta patients alleging that the type-2 diabetes medication was the cause of the thyroid cancer they developed.

According to the motion, all of the Byetta lawsuits allege similar causes of their thyroid cancer, including “whether the defendants knew of the thyroid cancer risk associated with Byetta and failed to disclose it to the medical community and/or consumers.”

The charges are also very similar in terms of the damages the plaintiffs are seeking and the allegations they have charged including violations of various state laws, negligence, products liability, breach of warranty, negligent representation and fraud.

It is also anticipated that there will be more Byetta thyroid cancer lawsuits filed that would be added to the proposed MDL.

Type-2 diabetes is a serious illness with serious consequences. It is the most frequent cause of blindness, amputations, and dialysis in the world. Drugs like Byetta, generic exentide, are prescribed to help keep these symptoms at bay.

Byetta is in the class of oral diabetes medications called glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1/GLP-1R), also known as incretin mimetics that work by helping to control blood sugar for those suffering from type-2 diabetes. It increases insulin secretion that is needed to help maintain proper blood sugar levels, while suppressing the increase of glucagon, a hormone that raises the glucose in the blood. Glucagon is released by the pancreas when glucose levels become too low. Incretins are gastrointestinal hormones that are supposed to release insulin before glucose levels start to rise, and they also hinder the release glucagon. Byetta is designed to normalize this process that doesn’t work properly in diabetes patients.

According to the Byetta lawsuit, “incretins are gut-derived hormones, which inhabit thyroid tissue.”

Byetta went on the market in 2005 shortly after being approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). A similar drug called Victoza, which is also a GLP-1 drug, went on the market in 2010.

When the FDA approved Victoza, it included a “black box” warning that said that Victoza “causes thyroid C-cell tumors at clinically relevant exposures in rodents. It is unknown whether Victoza causes thyroid C-cell tumours, including mendullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC), in humans, as human relevance could not be determined by clinical or nonclinical studies.”

However, Byetta, which works the same way as Victoza, does not include a thyroid cancer warning on its label even though the Byetta label does state that “benign thyroid C-cell adenomas were observed in female rats at all exenatide doses.”

According to research released by the journal Gastroenteronology in February 2011 titled, “Pancreatitis, pancreatic, and thyroid cancer with glucagon-like peptide-1-based therapies,” that looked at the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) for reports concerning type-2 diabetes GLP-1 medications like Byetta, researchers discovered that among patients who took Byetta, there was a 4.73-fold greater reported event rate in comparison to other therapies.

In general, Byetta thyroid cancer lawsuits are filed individually by each plaintiff and are not class actions.

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