Blindness Lawsuits filed against Ozempic, Wegovy and other Weight Loss Drug Manufacturers

NAION

NAION is particularly terrifying because it cannot be managed or improved with intervention. When blood flow to the optic nerve is blocked or reduced, vision loss can arrive suddenly—sometimes within hours. It’s the second leading cause of blindness from optic nerve damage after glaucoma, yet many patients taking GLP-1 drugs had never heard of it before their diagnosis. According to the American Academy of Opthamology, NAION is the most common cause of acute optic nerve injury in individuals over 50 years old. Despite its frequency, several aspects of this disease, including its pathogenesis and effective treatments, remain unknown or unproven.

NAION Lawsuits

One lawsuit alleging GLP-1 receptors cause vision loss was filed in Pennsylvania federal court this January and joins approximately 30 federal cases and over 40 state cases in GLP-1 litigation, according to Reuters. Jason Lowe was prescribed Ozempic in August 2023 to manage type 2 diabetes, but in February 2024 Lowe described to his ophthalmologist sudden blurred vision and flashes in his right eye. The diagnosis—non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION—was permanent. This type of “eye stroke,” would never improve.

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation has decided these vision loss claims warrant their own separate mass litigation, distinct from the nearly 3,000 lawsuits alleging that drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Eli Lilly’s Trulicity cause gastroparesis and other gastrointestinal injuries. Both sets of cases will proceed before U.S. District Judge Karen Marston in Philadelphia.

Trail of Evidence

Plaintiffs claim that manufacturers, including Novo Nordisk (Ozempic, Wegovy, Saxenda) and Eli Lilly ( Trulicity)  knew—or should have known—about the NAION risk associated with GLP-1 drugs and didn’t adequately warn doctors and patients.

Lowe’s lawsuit notes that Novo Nordisk has known since at least 2016 that human eyes contain GLP-1 receptors, establishing a biological pathway between the drug and vision complications. Reports of optic ischemic neuropathy linked to GLP-1 use surfaced as early as 2012, with specific connections to Ozempic and Wegovy documented by 2019. In a similar Ozempic-NAION lawsuit filed in 2024, plaintiff Todd Engel claimed Novo Nordisk failed to warn him and his doctor that taking Ozempic increased his risk of NAION.

A landmark 2024 study published in JAMA Ophthalmology found diabetes patients on semaglutide (the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy) were four times more likely to develop NAION than those on other medications. For patients with obesity, the risk jumped to eight times higher than normal. And in 2025, another cohort study likewise reported an association between semaglutide use and NAION risk in patients with diabetes.

Particularly insidious is that, according to Lowe’s lawsuit, a Novo Nordisk spokesperson reportedly acknowledged that NAION cases were identified during the company’s clinical trials. Despite this knowledge—and despite issuing 14 different iterations of warning labels since Ozempic hit the market—the manufacturer allegedly never included sufficient warnings about NAION risks.

Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have disputed the vision-loss claims, just like they have also disputed GLP-1 gastrointestinal injury. Nearly 3,000 lawsuits allege that drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Eli Lilly’s Trulicity cause gastroparesis and other gastrointestinal injuries. Reuters reported the companies have argued in court filings that gastroparesis risk is well publicized and that drug design changes can’t simply be made unilaterally without FDA approval.

Along with failure to warn, plaintiffs are alleging strict liability for design defects, negligence, negligent misrepresentation in marketing, breach of warranty, and violations of consumer protection laws. They’re arguing that pharmaceutical companies have a fundamental duty to disclose known or reasonably foreseeable risks, and that when serious side effects go undisclosed, patients face life-altering injuries, including permanent blindness, without informed consent.

Legal Steps

Those who developed NAION or other serious vision problems after using GLP-1 drugs are being advised to seek evaluation from neuro-ophthalmologists, preserve all medical records and prescription histories, and document the timeline between drug use and symptom onset. These steps matter both for medical management and for potential legal claims, where individual factors—duration of use, medical history, timing of diagnosis—can determine eligibility.