GSK has agreed to pay up to $2.2 billion to settle the majority of lawsuits in US state courts claiming that the discontinued version of the heartburn drug Zantac caused cancer. This settlement covers approximately 80,000 cases, or 93% of cases pending against the British drugmaker in state courts across the country. The company will also pay $70 million to settle a related whistleblower lawsuit filed by a Connecticut laboratory. GSK did not admit wrongdoing as part of the deal, stating that there was no consistent or reliable evidence that ranitidine, the drug’s active ingredient, increased the risk of cancer. However, the company decided to settle to avoid the risk of continuing litigation.
Lead attorneys for the plaintiffs, Jennifer Moore and R. Brent Wisner, expressed their satisfaction with the deal, stating that they were “thrilled” with the settlement. Zantac was first approved by US regulators in 1983 and became the world’s best-selling medicine in 1988, reaching over $1 billion in annual sales. The drug has been sold by various pharmaceutical companies, including GSK, Pfizer, Sanofi, and Boehringer Ingelheim. Lawsuits against these companies began to pile up in state and federal courts after the US Food and Drug Administration requested manufacturers to withdraw Zantac from the market in 2020 due to concerns that ranitidine could degrade into NDMA, a carcinogen.
Pfizer has reached settlements in most Zantac cases against it in state court, as indicated in its recent financial statement, while Sanofi announced in April that it was settling about 4,000 cases. Boehringer Ingelheim, on the other hand, has not announced major settlements and is currently facing a trial over the drug in Oakland, California state court. The company denies any wrongdoing and continues to defend against claims of exposing millions to a known carcinogen. The majority of the remaining state court cases are in Delaware, where a crucial expert testimony linking Zantac to cancer has been allowed to be presented. The drug companies are appealing this ruling to the Delaware Supreme Court.
In 2022, a Florida federal court judge ruled that approximately 50,000 cases centralized there could not proceed due to unreliable expert testimony. However, about 14,000 of these cases are being appealed and are not part of the recent settlement. It is important to note that the current version of Zantac, sold under the name Zantac 360, uses a different active ingredient and does not contain ranitidine. The legal battles surrounding Zantac and its potential link to cancer continue, with ongoing appeals and trials shaping the outcome of remaining cases. The settlements reached by GSK and other pharmaceutical companies underscore the complexity and impact of the Zantac litigation on both the companies and the plaintiffs seeking justice.
