In what could be considered the “Toyota” of pharmaceutical lawsuits, GlaxoSmithKline’s ever-mounting civil lawsuits involving the botched diabetes drug Avandia could total somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 billion when all is said and done. The United Bank of Switzerland (UBS) reported last week that the predicted multibillion-dollar estimate would cover the settlements and compensation for severe health complications caused by the company’s popular diabetes drug.

Once thought to be a super drug for type 2 diabetes sufferers, the prescription drug has been linked to serious heart problems, including heart attacks. The UBS noted that GlaxoSmithKline could be expected to pay in the $1 billion to $6 billion range and that the current total is roughly $2.5 billion today.

There are over 13,000 lawsuits currently pending against GlaxoSmithKline, as well as other pharmaceutical companies that make similar products, in the United States alone, according to a report from the U.S. Senate Finance Committee that was released last month. The Senate report alleges that Glaxo has attempted to undermine criticism of the drug. The massive 250,000-page document includes interviews, e-mails and testimony from former Glaxo employees, FDA officials, and anonymous whistleblowers.

The Food and Drug Administration, which formed a committee of medical professionals in 2007 to decide the fate of Avandia, and to determine if it did in fact cause risk of heart attack, has so far only responded by imposing that a mandatory warning be placed on the drug explaining that it was capable of causing heart problems including heart attack. Since 2007, however, more evidence of the dangers of Avandia use continues to surface. Liver failure, bone fractures, loss of vision, stroke, heart attacks, and even wrongful death are on the list of risks now associated with Avandia.  These lawsuits claim that GlaxoSmithKline failed to properly warn diabetes patients of the risks.