GLP-1 MDL 3094: The Expert Hearing Ended. No Ruling Is Posted.

The federal GLP-1 gastrointestinal injury docket passed a milestone in September 2026, and it is one that is easy to read the wrong way. The court held a week-long evidentiary hearing on the plaintiffs’ causation experts. The hearing ended. No ruling has appeared on the court’s public orders page.

This article reports only what the court’s own orders and the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation’s own statistics establish as of early October 2026. Where the record does not establish something — a ruling, a trial date, a settlement figure — this article says so rather than filling the gap.

The short version

• 4,025 actions were pending in MDL 3094 in the JPML’s report dated October 1, 2026, with 4,139 total actions historically.
• The case sits in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, before Judge Karen Spencer Marston, under master docket 2:24-md-3094.
• A Rule 702 evidentiary hearing — commonly called a Daubert hearing — on Cross Cutting Issues 2 and 3 was held September 14 to 18, 2026, in Courtroom 16B.
• The court’s public orders page shows no ruling on those motions as of October 3, 2026.
• No trial date and no settlement appear on the published record. The court has monthly status conferences scheduled into December 2026.

What the case is

MDL 3094 is the multidistrict litigation for Glucagon-like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists (GLP-1 RAs) Products Liability Litigation. According to the court’s own case page, the actions are generally personal injury claims stemming from the use of GLP-1 receptor agonists — medicines prescribed for, among other things, the treatment of type 2 diabetes. That class includes Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus, which the court’s page attributes to the Novo Nordisk defendants, and Trulicity and Mounjaro, which it attributes to Eli Lilly and Company.

The court’s page describes the common allegations as reported by the JPML when it centralised the cases: that the products have an alleged propensity to cause gastrointestinal injuries, that the defendants knew or should have known of that risk, whether the defendants adequately warned plaintiffs or their prescribing physicians, and whether they made false, misleading or incomplete representations about safety. The page states plainly that the Novo Nordisk defendants and Eli Lilly deny these allegations.

That last sentence matters. Everything that follows is a description of a legal process, not a finding of liability. No court has found that any GLP-1 drug caused any plaintiff’s injury.

What the court has ordered

The Rule 702 hearing, and why it is not a trial

Case Management Order No. 32, filed April 30, 2026, is the Fifth Amended Scheduling Order for Cross Cutting Issues 2 and 3. It set this sequence:

Deadline	What was due
May 19, 2026	Rule 702 motions to exclude expert opinions, and initial briefs
May 19, 2026	Summary judgment motions and initial briefs
June 17, 2026	Briefs opposing the Rule 702 motions
June 30, 2026	Briefs opposing the summary judgment motions
July 15, 2026	Reply briefs supporting the Rule 702 motions
August 7, 2026	Reply briefs supporting the summary judgment motions
September 10–18, 2026	Hearing on the Rule 702 motions, Courtroom 16B

The order records that the extension was granted on the Novo defendants’ unopposed request.

A separate order filed August 28, 2026 (Doc. 881) then rescheduled the hearing, moving it from September 10–18 to September 14–18, 2026, in Courtroom 16B. That order also set the daily sitting hours: 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday; 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Wednesday; and 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Friday.

The court’s case page confirms the hearing went ahead in that window. Its notice reads that from September 14 through September 18, 2026, Judge Marston held a Rule 702 evidentiary hearing on Cross Cutting Issues 2 and 3.

This is the distinction that gets misread. A Rule 702 motion asks a judge to decide whether an expert witness may testify — whether the methodology behind the opinion is reliable enough to reach a jury. A hearing on those motions is a proceeding about the admissibility of evidence. It is not a jury trial. It does not decide whether a drug caused an injury, it does not award compensation, and it does not approve a settlement. A headline that describes the September hearing as a “trial” is describing something that did not happen.

No ruling is posted

The court’s public MDL 3094 orders page lists its orders by date. As of October 3, 2026, the most recent entry on that page is the August 28, 2026 scheduling order that moved the hearing. Nothing later appears.

That is a statement about the public record, and nothing more. It means the court has not posted a decision on the Rule 702 motions. It does not mean no decision is coming, and it does not support any prediction about when one will arrive or which way it will go. Anyone who tells you the outcome of these motions before the court posts it is guessing.

How the case is structured

Two orders show how the court is managing a docket of this size.

Case Management Order No. 30, filed January 14, 2026, established a second “Streamlined Docket,” numbered 01-md-3094. It contains only the core documents: the JPML’s transfer order and reassignment order, the master pleadings, the case management orders, and the briefing and rulings on contested discovery motions, dispositive motions and Rule 702 motions. The point is to keep the decisive filings in one clean place rather than buried among thousands of individual case entries.

Case Management Order No. 27, filed October 3, 2025, is the Short Form Complaint Enabling Order. Under it, the Master Complaint together with each plaintiff’s Short Form Complaint is the operative complaint for that action. That is standard practice in large MDLs: it avoids re-pleading common allegations thousands of times.

The monthly conferences

An amended order filed April 30, 2026 (Doc. 657) cancelled two previously scheduled status conferences and set the following in-person status conferences before Judge Marston in Courtroom 16B, each at 1:00 p.m.:

• June 23, 2026
• July 14, 2026
• October 13, 2026
• November 17, 2026
• December 15, 2026

The court allows remote viewing of these conferences. They are case-management proceedings, not trials.

What has not happened

Three things a reader is likely to be searching for are simply not on the record.

No trial date. No bellwether trial is scheduled on the court’s published orders page. The September 2026 hearing was an evidentiary proceeding, not a trial, and it does not create a trial date.

No settlement. No global settlement in MDL 3094 has been announced on the court’s public record. There is no figure to report, and this article reports none.

No causation ruling. The Rule 702 motions concern the admissibility of expert testimony. Even when a ruling comes, it is a decision about evidence — not a finding that any product caused any injury.

The related NAION docket

A separate MDL covers a different alleged injury from the same drug class. MDL 3163 is the litigation for GLP-1 RA Non-Arteritic Anterior Ischemic Optic Neuropathy (NAION) — a vision-loss condition. The JPML reported 247 actions pending in MDL 3163 on October 1, 2026.

MDL 3163 sits before the same judge, in the same district, but it is a separate docket with a separate alleged injury. Reporting that treats the two as one case will misstate both. The gastrointestinal claims are in 3094; the NAION claims are in 3163.

Why this matters

In a mass tort, the expert-evidence stage is often where the case is genuinely decided in practice, long before any jury is empanelled. If a court excludes a plaintiff’s general causation experts, the claims that depend on general causation become substantially harder to prove, whatever the individual facts of a case may be. That is why the Rule 702 briefing and the September hearing are the events worth tracking — and why it is worth being precise about what they are.

They are not a verdict. They are not a settlement. They are a gate, and the gate has not yet been decided on the public record.

What is next

• October 13, 2026 — in-person status conference before Judge Marston in Courtroom 16B.
• November 17, 2026 and December 15, 2026 — further scheduled status conferences.
• A ruling on the Rule 702 motions, whenever the court posts it. No date is set.
• November 1, 2026 — the JPML’s next monthly report, which will update the pending action counts.

Frequently asked questions

What is MDL 3094 and which court is handling the GLP-1 cases? MDL 3094 is the multidistrict litigation for Glucagon-like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists (GLP-1 RAs) Products Liability Litigation, held in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania before Judge Karen Spencer Marston under master docket 2:24-md-3094.

What happened at the September 2026 MDL 3094 hearing? From September 14 to September 18, 2026, the court held a Rule 702 evidentiary hearing, often called a Daubert hearing, on Cross Cutting Issues 2 and 3. An August 28, 2026 order moved the hearing from September 10–18 to September 14–18, 2026. The hearing concluded; the court’s public orders page does not announce a ruling as of October 3, 2026.

Was the September 2026 hearing a trial? No. A Rule 702 evidentiary hearing concerns whether expert testimony is admissible. It is not a jury trial on whether a drug caused an injury, it does not award compensation, and it does not approve a settlement.

How many GLP-1 cases are pending in MDL 3094? The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation reported 4,025 actions pending in MDL 3094 in its October 1, 2026 report, alongside 4,139 total historical actions.

Is there a settlement or a trial date in the GLP-1 litigation? Not on the court’s public record. No global settlement has been announced in MDL 3094 and no bellwether trial date appears on the court’s published orders page. The court has scheduled monthly status conferences through December 2026.

What is the difference between MDL 3094 and MDL 3163? Both sit before Judge Marston in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, but they cover different alleged injuries. MDL 3094 concerns gastrointestinal injuries such as gastroparesis; MDL 3163 covers non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION), a vision-loss condition. They are separate dockets, and the JPML reported 247 actions pending in MDL 3163 on October 1, 2026.

Sources

All factual statements above are drawn from the court’s own orders and case page, and from the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation’s monthly statistics report. The full list is in the references for this article.

This is not legal advice

This article reports publicly available court records. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship with anyone. If you believe you have a claim, the deadlines that apply to you depend on your own facts and your own jurisdiction; consult a licensed attorney in your state about your own situation. Court records change — verify anything time-sensitive against the court’s own docket before relying on it.