How Does Tepezza Work?

If your physician diagnoses thyroid eye disease, you might receive a prescription for Tepezza to alleviate the symptoms. If you suffer from TED, your immune system attacks the muscles and fat tissue located behind both eyes. The result can be the triggering of a considerable amount of pain, as well as the bulging of one or both eyes. TED also goes by the name Graves’ eye disease.

You receive Tepezza as an intravenous infusion injected in a vein, typically located in one of your arms. The dose of Tepezza remains the same for every injection, which occurs once every three weeks. Tepezza quickly travels through the arm into the bloodstream, where it moves into the area of both eyes. Treatments usually last no longer than six months, although there might be an exception if you suffer from an especially harsh version of the disease. For some patients, the infusions take place at home.

How does Tepezza work? This is the difficult question researchers have tried to answer ever since the drug went through the trial phase of the approval process. We know the drug attaches to certain proteins located on the surface of the cells located behind both eyes. The drug prevents your immune system from activating the proteins to attack the muscles and fat tissues found in the area of both eyes. 

Tepezza is not different from the vast majority of prescription drugs in that it comes with mild to serious side effects. The seriousness of the negative side effects depends on your age, overall medical condition, and any other types of prescription medications that you take.

Mild side effects fatigue, nausea, headaches, and muscle spasms. The mild side effects typically appear early in the prescription schedule, and they last anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks. Serious side effects of taking Tepezza, which you should address immediately by calling your healthcare provider, include significant hearing loss, an elevated blood sugar count, and a rapid increase in both your heartbeat and blood pressure. However, acute hearing loss is the most common serious side effect associated with undergoing a Tepezza prescription regimen.

In March 2021, the Endocrine Society journal published the result of a major study that demonstrated more than 60 percent of patients who took Tepezza reported some degree of hearing loss and/or intense ringing of one or both ears. The 60 percent rate reported by patients is more than six times the rate reported by Horizon Therapeutics researchers during the FDA approval process. In addition to producing a drug that generates adverse side effects, Horizon Therapeutics also might be legally liable for falsifying research results concerning Tepezza.

Filing a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages requires the product liability attorney from Morgan and Morgan assigned to your case to prove the four elements of negligence.

Duty of Care

We already touched on this, but it bears repeating: Horizon Therapeutics owes you a duty of care to manufacture a safe drug that does not cause you to suffer from any negative side effects. This is usually the easiest element of negligence to prove for a personal injury lawsuit.

Violate the Duty of Care Doctrine

Your attorney has to present convincing evidence that Horizon Therapeutics committed one or more acts that caused you harm. In this case, violating the duty of care doctrine includes manufacturing a dangerous product and concealing the potential adverse side effects, which Horizon Therapeutics appears to have done.

Caused You to Develop Hearing Loss and/or Ringing in the Ears

The negligent acts committed by Horizon Therapeutics must be directly linked to the development of hearing loss and/or ringing in the ears. For a personal injury lawsuit, the other party’s attorney tries to connect the development of hearing issues to another cause, such as prolonged exposure to a toxic chemical. Your product liability lawyer from Morgan and Morgan presents copies of medical bills as evidence that Tepezza has caused you some type of harm.

Sustained Financial Losses

The last element of proving negligence is to connect your Tepezza-related injuries to financial losses. Your attorney presents copies of bank statements, medical bills, and timekeeping records to verify that taking Tepezza has put you in a financial hole.

One of the reasons you should hire a product liability attorney from Morgan and Morgan is to ensure you file a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages before the expiration of the statute of limitations. Each state has established a deadline for taking legal action, with most states setting a deadline between two and four years. The clock starts to tick on the deadline for taking legal action on the day when you discovered Tepezza has caused you to develop hearing loss and/or ringing in the ears. This means your attorney must receive a copy of the diagnostic test that discovered your hearing issues. A copy of the diagnostic should include a date, which represents the start of the clock ticking on the statute of limitations.

If you fail to file a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages before the expiration of the statute of limitations, Expect the court clerk processing your claim to remove it from the judicial docket.

As with most other types of personal injury lawsuits, you might qualify to receive three types of compensation.

Economic Damages

Economic damages help you recover from the financial losses associated with medical care, such as undergoing diagnostic tests, as well as completing treatment programs and physical therapy sessions. You also have the right to request compensation for prescription medications and any assistive device used, such as a pair of hearing aids. Your attorney might also request compensation to recover lost wages. Hearing loss takes a huge toll on a career, and you are entitled to receive compensation for the derailment of your career because of Tepezza.

Non-Economic Damages

Non-economic damages do not come with a price tag. Also referred to as general compensatory damages, non-economic damages financially address the development of emotional issues. Suffering from hearing damage can trigger a wide variety of negative emotions, including fear, anger, and anxiety. The negative emotions can cause both personal and professional relationship problems, as well as hinder your career advancement. The attorney from Morgan and Morgan assigned to your case calculates a reasonable value for non-economic damages by using a formula that factors in the value of economic damages. 

Punitive Damages

Punitive damages do not compensate you to take care of tangible expenses. Instead, judges award punitive damages to punish defendants for committing one or more acts of negligence. The awarding of punitive damages also is intended to deter a defendant from committing the same acts of negligence in the future. The judge hearing your case might award you a value of punitive damages that exceeds the combined value of economic and non-economic damages.

For a dangerous drug case such as Tepezza, you should hire a product liability attorney who has established a proven record of success litigating dangerous drug cases. Litigating dangerous drug cases requires a different approach than it does to litigate other types of product liability cases like cars and children’s toys. At Morgan and Morgan, the product liability lawyer assigned to your case responds promptly to emails, calls, and text messages. We encourage you to read the positive client reviews left by our clients on sites such as Yelp and Google.

After you discover why we are the preeminent personal injury law firm in the country, schedule a free case evaluation to learn more about your legal options.