Sixty-two-year-old Todd Engel was prescribed Ozempic to treat his diabetes in August 2023. Subsequently he noticed that his vision was becoming severely blurred and therefore went to an ophthalmologist in his home state of Maryland. The ophthalmologist diagnosed him with nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION), which is an irreversible and untreatable loss of vision that is believed to be caused by lack of blood flow to the optic nerve.
Engel is now legally blind and lost his job because of his vision loss.
On April 24, 2025, Engel filed a lawsuit against Novo Nordisk, the manufacturer of Ozempic, in New Jersey, where the large pharmaceutical company is headquartered in the United States. His complaint alleges that Novo Nordisk negligently failed to warn him regarding the risk of blindness associated with Ozempic and negligently misrepresented and marketed Ozempic.
Novo Nordisk issued a statement in which it reportedly stated that NAION is very rare and is not considered an adverse drug reaction to semaglutide drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, and Rybelsus: “Patient safety is a top priority for Novo Nordisk, and we take all reports about adverse events from use of our medicines very seriously. This also relates to eye conditions, which are well-known comorbidities for people living with diabetes. Any decision to start treatment with prescription-only medicines should be made in consultation with a healthcare professional who should do a benefit-risk evaluation for the patient in question, weighing up the benefits of treatment with the potential risks.”
A study published on July 3, 2024 in JAMA Ophthalmology entitled Risk of Nonarteritic Anterior Ischemic Optic Neuropathy in Patients Prescribed Semaglutide reported: “Nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION) is the second most common form of optic neuropathy and a significant cause of blindness among adults … The incidence of NAION is 2 to 10 cases per 100 000 persons, making it the second most common cause of blindness due to optic nerve damage (with glaucoma being the most common). The relatively high HRs (4.28 and 7.64 for our T2D and overweight or obese cohorts, respectively) identified by our Cox regression analyses reveal a substantially increased risk of NAION among individuals prescribed semaglutide relative to those prescribed other medications to treat T2D and obesity or overweight … The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis at 36 months showed a cumulative incidence of NAION of 8.9% (95% CI, 4.5%-13.1%) for the semaglutide cohort vs 1.8% (95% CI, 0%-3.5%) for the nonsemaglutide cohort … This risk appears not to be due to differences in baseline characteristics between the cohorts … This study is the first, to our knowledge, to report an association between semaglutide and NAION, although the design of our study did not enable query into a causal relationship between the two.”
If you or a loved one took Ozempic or another semaglutide drug and suffered vision loss afterwards, you should promptly consult with a medical malpractice lawyer in your U.S. state who may investigate your possible medical malpractice or product liability claim for you and represent you or your loved one in a semaglutide (Ozempic) vision loss case, if appropriate.
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