Plaintiff Judith Little has filed a product liability lawsuit against Merck & Co. Inc., alleging that their diabetes drug Januvia caused the pancreatic cancer that killed her husband William Little in August of 2012.

According to the Januvia lawsuit, Little’s husband was  first prescribed Januvia in July  2011 and continued to take it for at least a year. In April 2012, Little was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. By August of that year, Little died from the disease. The Januvia lawsuit points out that less than 2% of patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer survive more than five years after the initial diagnosis.

The Januvia cancer lawsuit alleges that the drug caused Little’s cancer, and that Merck knew, or reasonably should have known, of this risk. To support this contention, the lawsuit cited research articles, including one published in 2010 in the journal Diabetes Care. The article presented evidence of a link between Januvia and related drugs to an increased risk of pancreatic cancer.

The lawsuit further asserts that the manufacturers actively concealed the risks of pancreatic cancer associated with the drug through active misrepresentations and omissions. According to the lawsuit, the manufacturers concealed this information to make a profit, and in the process prevented patients like William Little and prescribing physicians from having the information they needed to make informed decisions regarding their medical care.

The Januvia cancer lawsuit claims that William Little would have never used the drug had he known about the risk of developing pancreatic cancer.

Judith Little’s lawsuit has joined existing multi-district litigation against Merck. Multidistrict litigations or MDLs are a type of group lawsuit, similar to a class-action suit, except that in MDLs each plaintiff has their only representation while in a class action suit, all of the allegedly-injured parties are represented by a single lawyer or team of lawyers for the whole group.

The Januvia pancreatic cancer lawsuit is Judith Y. Little, Individually and as Successor-In-Interest And Surviving Heir of William R. Little, Deceased v. Merck and Company Incorporated et al, Case No. 3:13-cv-02681-AJB-MDD AJB MDD within the MDL In Re: Incretin Mimetic Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2452, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California.