(Reuters) – A Delaware judge has allowed more than 70,000 lawsuits over the discontinued heartburn drug Zantac to continue, ruling that expert witnesses can testify at trial that the drug can cause cancer.
The decision, handed down Friday by Judge Vivian Medinilla of the Delaware Supreme Court in Wilmington, is a setback for former Zantac makers GSK. Pfizer (New York Stock Exchange:), Sanofi (NASDAQ:) and Boehringer Ingelheim, which argued that the opinions of expert witnesses were not scientifically supported.
“This brings us one step closer to justice for our clients,” Wisner, one of the plaintiffs’ lead lawyers, said in a statement Saturday.
GSK, Pfizer and Sanofi said in separate statements that they disagreed with the decision and would appeal. They said there is no reliable evidence that Zantac causes cancer. A representative for Boehringer Ingelheim did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In 2019, some manufacturers and pharmacies stopped selling Zantac after a chemical called NDMA, known to cause cancer, was found in some pills. Some tests have shown that Zantac’s active ingredient, ranitidine, can degrade into NDMA over time or when exposed to heat.
Lawsuits began pouring in from people who said they developed cancer after taking Zantac. The plaintiffs said the companies knew or should have known that ranitidine posed a cancer risk and that they failed to warn consumers.
The US Food and Drug Administration has asked manufacturers to remove the drug from the market in 2020. Drug makers say there is no evidence that Zantac exposes users to the harmful effects of NDMA.
Medinilla presides over the majority of the nearly 80,000 cases still pending in the United States involving Zantac, once the world’s best-selling drug.
In addition to the Delaware cases, drug makers face about 4,000 lawsuits in California state court and about 2,000 in other state courts across the country.
Last month, a Chicago jury rejected an Illinois woman’s claim that Zantac gave her colon cancer, giving GSK and Boehringer Ingelheim a victory in the first case to go to trial.
The drugmakers scored a significant victory in 2022 when a different judge dismissed about 50,000 lawsuits with similar claims that had been consolidated in federal court in Florida.
This judge concluded that the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses’ opinions that Zantac could cause cancer were not supported by sound scientific evidence. The plaintiffs are appealing this decision.
Zantac became the world’s best-selling drug in 1988 and one of the first drugs to exceed $1 billion in annual sales. Originally marketed by predecessor GSK, it was later sold successively to Pfizer, Boehringer and finally Sanofi.