Third trial over Zantac cancer claims ends with hung jury

[August 08, 2024]  By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) -The third trial over claims that discontinued heartburn drug Zantac ended in a mistrial on Wednesday when jurors could not agree about whether pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim was responsible for an Illinois man's cancer.

Martin Gross alleged in his lawsuit in state court in Chicago that he developed prostate cancer from a carcinogenic contaminant called NDMA found in the drug. His lawyer, Sean Grimsley, said he would take his case to trial again.

"We continue to believe in our case, in our cause and in our client," he said.

Boehringer Ingelheim said in a statement that it was "disappointed" that the jury had not reached a verdict and that "the  totality of the scientific  evidence" supports "only one conclusion: Zantac does not cause any type of cancer."

First approved by U.S. regulators in 1983, Zantac became the world's best-selling medicine in 1988 and one of the first to top $1 billion in annual sales. It was sold at different times by Boehringer Ingelheim, GSK, Pfizer and Sanofi, all of which have faced thousands of lawsuits.

Two such cases previously went to trial, both ending in verdicts for the defense - one for Boehringer Ingelheim and GSK in May, and the other for GSK on Monday.

Sanofi has agreed to settle about 4,000 cases against it, while Pfizer has reportedly agreed to settle more than 10,000. The companies have also settled some individual cases before trial.

A bottle of Zantac heartburn drug is seen in this picture illustration taken October 1, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/Illustration/File Photo

The majority of the lawsuits are in Delaware state court, where a judge in June allowed more than 70,000 cases to go forward after rejecting the defendants' bid to keep key plaintiffs' expert witnesses out of court on the grounds that their scientific methods were not reliable. The companies are appealing that ruling.

The litigation began after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2020 asked manufacturers to pull the drug off the market over concerns that ranitidine, the active ingredient in Zantac and generic versions of the drug, could degrade into NDMA over time or when exposed to heat.

The drugmakers have said the cases are meritless. They won a significant victory in 2022, when a Florida federal judge ruled against about 50,000 cases, finding that the alleged cancer link was not supported by sound science. Some of those cases are being appealed.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Aurora Ellis and Diane Craft)

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