Drugmaker GSK settles California lawsuit on Zantac. On Wednesday, GSK (GSK.L) said it had settled a lawsuit in California claiming the British pharmaceutical company’s now-discontinued heartburn medication Zantac was carcinogenic.
The Cantlay/Harper case trial, scheduled to start on November 13, will now be dismissed, according to GSK. It also announced that it has resolved the final three breast cancer bellwether cases in California involving the same medicine.
Zantac, which received its first approval in 1983, became one of the first medicines to achieve annual sales of $1 billion and the best-selling medication in the world by 1988.
It was first advertised by a predecessor of GSK, then sold to Pfizer (PFE.N), Boehringer Ingelheim, and Sanofi (SASY.PA). About the medicine, those businesses are also being sued. In 2020, the FDA removed all brand-name Zantac and generic equivalents from the market, setting up a legal storm.
According to GSK on Wednesday, the deal showed its “desire to avoid distraction related to protracted litigation.” It stated that it would aggressively defend itself in any such Zantac claims and refused to accept any blame.
A California man, James Goetz, claimed he suffered bladder cancer after using Zantac, and GSK settled late in June. On July 24, the trial was scheduled to begin.
