The wife of a man who died of pancreatic cancer sued the makers of the diabetes drug Januvia, alleging Januvia caused her late husband to develop the lethal cancer.

Mary Harmon filed the Januvia pancreatic cancer lawsuit on behalf of herself and her deceased husband, William Harmon. Her Januvia lawsuit establishes a timeline of her husband’s use of the prescription drug and terminal cancer. William Harmon took the drug from 2007 through mid-2010. In February 2009, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In March 2013, Harmon died from the disease.

Januvia is diabetes drug. Diabetes is a condition in which patients lose the ability to control the level of glucose (sugar) in their blood. This allows glucose to build up to toxic levels, at which point it can damage tissues, leading to blindness, organ damage, and gangrene in the extremities. Drugs like Januvia are designed to prevent these complications. Januvia belongs to a family of diabetes called incretins, which also includes Victoza, Janumet and Byetta. However, these drugs have been alleged to increase a patient’s risk of developing pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer is a particularly deadly form of cancer. The five-year survival rate is less than 10 percent. This is because the pancreas does not contain many pain receptors, so the disease typically presents few symptoms until the cancer has spread beyond the pancreas. In fact, in 80 percent of cases, the cancer has already spread by the time it is diagnosed. Once the cancer is spread throughout the body, it is very difficult to treat.

Januvia cancer lawsuits like Mary Harmon’s have alleged that based on the earliest animal trials and human clinical testing, the makers of these drugs should have been aware of the risks associated with them, including the risk of pancreatic cancer. The Januvia lawsuits further allege that in spite of this, drug makers continued to produce the drug, leading to deaths like William Harmon’s.

The litigation over Januvia and related drugs has taken the form of a multidistrict litigation, or MDL. MDLs are a type of group lawsuit, similar in some ways to class action lawsuits. In both class action lawsuits and MDLs, a group of patients allege that they have suffered similar harm at the hands of the same defendants. The main difference is that class action lawsuits start out as group lawsuits, while MDLs start out as individual lawsuits later grouped together into a coordinated MDL.

The Januvia Pancreatic Cancer Lawsuit is Mary Dolores Harmon, et al,, v. Amylin Pharmaceuticals LLC, Case No. 14CV1006 AJB MDD, within the MDL In Re: Incretin-Based Therapies Product Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2452, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.