U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel, who is currently overseeing the Lipitor MDL in South Carolina, has announced the first bellwether trial will begin in October 2015 for a lawsuit filed by Colorado plaintiff Wilma D.

Discovery in the Lipitor diabetes lawsuit is currently underway. It is one of more than 1,600 cases currently pending before judge Gergel over allegations that Lipitor side effects caused women to develop type-2 diabetes.

Wilma alleges in her Lipitor diabetes lawsuit that she “very healthy” when her doctor prescribed her the drug to “decrease her risk of developing cardiovascular disease.”

Lipitor is a prescription medicine used to lower “bad” cholesterol and raise “good” cholesterol. According to the Lipitor website, more than 29 million people in the United States have been prescribed the drug.

Instead of improving her health, however, Wilma claims that Lipitor caused her to develop type-2 diabetes, which “left her with an increased risk of heart disease and other health complications.”

Wilma’s case will be the first of several bellwether trials to heard by Judge Gregal, which will set the tone for how the remaining 1,600 Lipitor lawsuits will be tried. Each lawsuit contains similar allegations that Pfizer failed to warn Lipitor users of the link between type-2 diabetes and the cholesterol drug.

Early trial dates for the other Lipitor bellwether lawsuits are expected to begin sometime this year.

Bellwether trials are used as a measuring stick for all parties involved in mass tort litigation to determine how the rest of the claims could play out in the courtroom. The trials could also play a role in a settlement agreement between plaintiffs and the defendant.

Lipitor Diabetes Litigation

Lipitor is a statin medication used to lower cholesterol in conjunction with diet and exercises.

In February 2012, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) announced that the labels for Lipitor and other statins would be updated to include new information about their potential association with type-2 diabetes. The label change was prompted by the publication of a study in JAMA: Internal Medicine, which suggested that post-menopausal women treated with statins faced an increased risk of developing new-onset type-2 diabetes.

Since then, court documents indicate that thousands of Lipitor diabetes product liability lawsuits have been filed nationwide. Allegations vary, but involve similar claims that ingesting the cholesterol drug caused Lipitor users to develop type-2 diabetes.

The cases have been consolidated under multidistrict litigation to avoid duplicate discovery, avoid conflicting rulings and lower costs for both parties.

Pfizer, the manufacturer of Lipitor, is also accused of concealing its alleged association with type-2 diabetes in order to protect sales of the medication. Plaintiffs further assert that the label modifications made by Pfizer following the FDA’s 2012 mandate still do not sufficiently inform patients about the potential association between Lipitor and type-2 diabetes.

The Lipitor Type-2 Diabetes lawsuit is Case No: 2:14-cv-01400-RMG and is housed in the larger Lipitor MDL known as In Re: Lipitor (Atorvastatin Calcium) Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2502, in the U.S. District Court of South Carolina, Charleston Division.