To help cope with the type-2 diabetes epidemic, a variety of drugs are on the market to help lower blood sugar levels in adults including Byetta, Januvia, and a host of others.

Treatment isn’t a cure, as California plaintiff Sharon Beverly discovered.

Beverly was prescribed Byetta to treat her diabetes in June 2011, and continued to use it as directed for one year, according to her Byetta lawsuit. A year later she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. As a result of her diagnosis, she suffered physical, economic and emotional injuries. When Beverly realized that her cancer could be attributed to her taking Byetta, she filed her Byetta lawsuit against Amylin Pharmaceuticals and Eli Lilly.

Beverly says that research shows Byetta has a flawed formulation that increases the risk of thyroid cancer in those diabetic patients to whom it is prescribed. She says the manufacturers knew of the risks, yet concealed their knowledge from her, other consumers and the medical community. Had she known or been warned, according to her Byetta complications lawsuit, Beverly says she would never have taken Byetta. There were many other drugs she could have used instead, but didn’t have all of the information to know to make that choice.

While Beverly hasn’t joined a Byetta class action lawsuit, she still can. For now, Beverly is taking independent legal action against the drug manufacturers responsible with claims of failure to warn, design defects, negligence, breach of implied and express warranty, negligent misrepresentation, fraudulent concealment and punitive damages.

The Byetta Lawsuit is Sharon Beverly v. Amylin Pharmaceuticals LLC, et al., Case No. 1:14-cv-1570L-RBB, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.

Type-2 Diabetes Drugs

Diabetes complications remain the most frequent cause of blindness, amputations and dialysis worldwide. With current estimates of more than 350 million sufferers worldwide, it is considered to be one of the major health challenges of the 21st century. Byetta is supposed to help prevent these diabetic complications.

Byetta is a member of a new class of drugs called glucagon-like peptide-1-based therapies. These drugs impact the body through “potentiation of incretin receptor signaling.” Incretins are gut-derived hormones, which live in thyroid tissue, and are secreted at low basal levels in the fasting state to control blood sugar.

Byetta is designed, marketed, distributed, and sold by Amylin Pharmaceuticals, LLC . The other defendant, Eli Lilly and Co., was its partner in the diabetes drug world until 2011. Byetta was approved by the FDA in April 2005. In 2010, the FDA approved Victoza, another member of the new GLP-1 class of drugs. As members of the same drug class, Byetta and Victoza act similarly in the human body. However, while the other drugs in this family have a black box warning, Byetta’s box is lacking these warnings.