Glucagon-like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists (GLP-1 RAs)

The GLP-1 RAs litigation, centralized before Judge Karen S. Marston in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in February 2024, consolidates claims against the makers of GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs — the class that includes widely prescribed diabetes and weight-loss medications — alleging gastroparesis and other gastrointestinal injury from inadequately warned side effects. With 4,022 actions pending, this is one of the largest active pharmaceutical mass torts, and its procedural history already includes a significant disruption: the litigation was originally assigned to a different judge who passed away, and the docket was subsequently reassigned to Judge Marston, who is expected to establish a bellwether program identifying representative cases from the pending pool.

For a funder, that judicial transition is a fact worth pricing into duration assumptions — a mid-litigation judge reassignment can introduce scheduling delay even when the new judge, as here, moves promptly to reestablish a case-management path forward. No bellwether trial date has been set as of the most recent update, so claim funding today is priced primarily against individual medical documentation — diagnosis, drug and dosage history, and gastrointestinal treatment records — rather than against trial-tested outcome data.

Given the sheer scale of the pending claim pool and the widespread use of the drug class at issue, portfolio finance is a particularly relevant structure here: a diversified book of GLP-1 claims lets a lender underwrite aggregate characteristics like drug brand, duration of use, and diagnosis severity rather than concentrating risk in any single claim's causation profile. Medical-lien exposure tied to gastroenterology treatment and any related hospitalization should be sized into any structure. Criterica Capital's mass tort finance and portfolio finance products both apply to this litigation, and a structural brief tracking the bellwether program's development is available through Criterica Intelligence.

Pre-settlement funding is a non-recourse purchase of a portion of the proceeds of a pending legal claim — not a loan. If the case does not result in a recovery, nothing is owed. Rates, fees, and repayment terms are disclosed in full in the funding agreement, which the applicant’s attorney reviews before signing. Availability and terms vary by state.