Bellwether cases that can impact thousands of Lipitor diabetes lawsuits are moving forward.

Since hundreds of Lipitor diabetes lawsuits have already been filed, and as many as 10,000 are ultimately expected, the  court system has coordinated the Lipitor diabetes lawsuits into multidistrict litigation, or MDL. In MDLs, the court system groups together very similar lawsuits. Lawsuits in an MDL like the Lipitor diabetes MDL typically claim that plaintiffs have suffered similar harm from the same defendants, and hinge on similar evidence. MDLs, like the better-known class action lawsuit, are designed to help streamline the legal process by combining tens, hundreds, or even thousands of individual lawsuits into a single coordinated proceeding.

Within an MDL, cases retain a degree of autonomy. Because of this, the first cases within the MDL to go to trial are special. These cases, called “bellwether cases,” which establish facts and create precedents that determine the direction of other cases in the MDL. There are 14 Lipitor lawsuits, chosen by both the defense and the plaintiffs’ legal teams, to act as bellwether cases.

In preparation for the bellwether cases, the discovery or evidence-presenting stage is being carefully planned. More than 3.5 million pages of documents have been turned over by Pfizer for the Lipitor diabetes MDL. Additionally, lawyers and officers of the court are currently scheduling witnesses, such as medical experts and Pfizer employees, for the first of the bellwether cases, which are scheduled to start in July 2015.

Among the issues raised by the Lipitor diabetes lawsuits within the MDL is the allegation that Pfizer was aware, or reasonably should have been aware, of the risk of Lipitor diabetes. The Lipitor lawsuits hold that some of the research studies that suggested a link date back as far as 2004, while Pfizer did not append the drug’s warning label to reflect the risk of Lipitor diabetes until 2012 when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) mandated changes to the drug’s labeling. Even then, Lipitor lawsuits allege, the drug’s makers continued to downplay the risk, using a warning that included medical jargon about “elevated blood glucose levels” instead of the word “diabetes.”

Lipitor is a drug designed to lower the level of low-density lipoproteins, also called LDL, or “bad cholesterol,” in the blood. High levels of LDL in the blood can cause heart and blood vessel disease, and leave patients more likely to face catastrophic medical problems like stroke and heart attack. However, the litigation over Lipitor alleges that the drug may have medical consequences of its own, specifically type-2 diabetes.

Several studies and hundreds of lawsuits have alleged that Lipitor can increase the risk of type-2 diabetes for many patients, particularly postmenopausal women. Type-2 diabetes is a chronic disease, a condition patients endure for the rest of their lives. In this disorder, patients’ control over the level of glucose (sugar) in their blood decreases, allowing glucose to build to toxic levels. When that happens, patients can suffer a host of serious medical problems, including heart disease, kidney failure, and even gangrene in their fingers, toes and limbs.

The Lipitor Diabetes MDL is In Re: Lipitor (Atorvastatin Calcium) Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation (No. II), MDL No. 2502, in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.