Drew Angerer
French drugmaker Sanofi (NASDAQ:SNY) on Wednesday said it had agreed to settle about 4K lawsuits in all U.S. states outside of Delaware over accusations that its Zantac heartburn drug caused cancer.
The company said that it was settling the cases to avoid the expense and “ongoing distraction” of the litigation, and not because it believed the claims have any merit. It added that no admissions of liability had been made.
“While the financial terms of Sanofi’s (SNY) agreement are confidential, the amount that would be paid reflects the limited time during which Sanofi (SNY) marketed Zantac and the strong defenses available to Sanofi (SNY) in these cases. The resolution of these cases will have no material financial impact,” a company spokesperson told Seeking Alpha in an emailed statement.
Sanofi (SNY) added that the agreement required the consent of the individual plaintiffs and noted that it “will take some to conclude.”
Earlier, Bloomberg reported that Sanofi (SNY) had agreed to settle about 5K lawsuits in the U.S. claiming that it sold Zantac without warning patients that it could cause cancer, citing people familiar with the deal.
Zantac made headlines back in late 2019 and 2020, after the U.S. FDA confirmed findings that the drug’s active ingredient, ranitidine, likely formed the carcinogen (NDMA), or n-nitrosodimethylamine, over time or in elevated temperatures. The drug regulator subsequently ordered companies to take the medicine off the market.
Since then, Sanofi (SNY) has brought Zantac back to the market, but without ranitidine. It is now made with the active ingredient famotidine.
“Sanofi (SNY) has vigorously defended the Zantac litigation since the outset and will continue to do so. Consistent with the federal court’s ruling that plaintiffs had insufficient evidence that ranitidine can cause plaintiffs’ alleged cancers, the medical, scientific, and regulatory communities have extensively evaluated and have found the allegations of the plaintiffs that Zantac causes cancer to be without merit,” the company said.
Other makers of Zantac, such as British drugmaker GSK (GSK), have resolved individual Zantac cases ahead of jury trials, but haven’t supported wider settlement efforts.