Belviq Lawsuits

On February 13, 2020, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it had requested the voluntary recall of Belviq from the market. The FDA’s Drug Safety Communication warned of an increased occurrence of cancer in a long-running clinical trial of the drugs and concluded that the risks of Belviq outweigh its benefits.

One month prior to this announcement, the FDA had also issued an alert about the possible carcinogenic nature of the medication, also known as lorcaserin.

Belviq Clinical Trials and Cancer Concerns

In 2012, the FDA approved lorcaserin with the requirement that drug manufacturer Eisai conduct clinical trials about the risks associated with its weight-loss medication. Over the course of five years, 12,000 obese patients with various cardiovascular disease risk factors participated in a clinical trial.

The clinical trial analysis revealed a potential connection between lorcaserin and cancer. In the period after the 2018 analysis was released, the FDA determined that the clinical trial participants continued to experience an increase in cancer diagnoses.

Not only did the number of cancers increase, so did the types of cancers that were attached to lorcaserin, along with higher incidents of colorectal, pancreatic, and lung cancer diagnoses among the users of the medication.

Warnings and Recalls

In February 2020, the FDA requested the recall of Belviq and Belviq XR from the market as a result of its potential cancer link.