Kentucky Man Blames Byetta for Causing Thyroid Cancer

A Kentucky man has filed a Byetta lawsuit against Amylin Pharmaceuticals LLC and Eli Lilly and Company after he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, which was caused allegedly by the type-2 diabetes medication. 

Sterling, Kentucky resident Daniel Curtis, 53, began taking Byetta in May 2007 until January 2009 to treat his type-2 diabetes. In October 2012, Curtis was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, an illness that allegedly caused “severe physical, economic, and emotional injuries.”

Curtis said that he only recently learned that the type-2 diabetes drugs like Byetta can lead to thyroid cancer. He stressed that he would have opted for a different drug had he known the risks associated with the medication.

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 (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. 

According to the Byetta lawsuit, “incretins are gut-derived hormones, which inhabit thyroid tissue.” They are supposed to release insulin before glucose levels start to rise, and they also hinder the release of glucagon. Byetta is designed to normalize this process, which doesn’t work properly in diabetes patients. 

Byetta went on the market in 2005 shortly after being approved by the U.S. Food & 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 tumors, 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 Gastroenterology in February 2011 titled, “Pancreatitis, pancreatic, and thyroid cancer with glucagon-like peptide-1-based therapies,” which 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.

Curtis’ charges against Eli Lilly include failure to warn, design defect, negligence, breach of warranty and fraud. The Kentucky resident is asking the Byetta drug maker to cover medical expenses, economic damages and punitive damages for either knowing or “recklessly disregarding the fact that the Drugs cause debilitating and potentially lethal side effects.”

The Byetta thyroid cancer lawsuit is Daniel Curtis v. Amylin Pharmaceuticals LLC, et al., Case No. 3:13-cv-02424-AJB_MDD, in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of California.

If you or someone you know has suffered from pancreatitis, pancreatic cancer, thyroid cancer or other serious side effects as a result of taking the Januvia type-2 diabetes drug, legal options are available to you. Learn more and get a free consultation regarding a claim’s eligibility at the Type 2 Diabetes Drugs Januvia, Byetta Class Action Lawsuit Investigation. Experienced legal professionals have access to medical experts to assess whether or not this type-2 diabetes medication played a role in your illness, so act now.