Pfizer has agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits accusing the company of concealing the cancer risks of its heartburn drug Zantac.
Financial details were not disclosed, but pharmaceutical rival Sanofi agreed last month to pay more than $100 million to resolve 4,000 Zantac cancer claims.
The over-the-counter pill was discontinued in the US in 2020 after animal research found a key ingredient released “probable human carcinogens.”
Pfizer was the main manufacturer of Zantac from 1998 to 2006, when several lawsuits alleged it should have known the drug was contaminated with NDMA.
Pfizer has agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits alleging that its heartburn drug Zantac caused cancer (stock)
Plaintiffs alleged that the drug was contaminated with the impurity due to improper manufacturing practices, and that Pfizer withheld this information from consumers.
NDMA is a chemical byproduct of many industrial manufacturing processes, including rocket fuel production.
It also occurs in small amounts in many foods, such as salted or smoked meats, fish and beer, as well as in tobacco smoke.
NDMA is a “forever chemical,” meaning it does not break down or break down naturally in our bodies and is believed to cause DNA damage.
Since the drug was withdrawn from the market and reformulated, thousands of lawsuits have piled up in federal and state courts against Pfizer, GSK, Sanofi and Boehringer Ingelheim, all of which had rights to the drug.
The deals with Pfizer involve cases in U.S. state courts but do not fully resolve the company’s exposure to Zantac claims, people familiar with the matter say told Bloomberg.
Financial details of the deals were not immediately available.
“Pfizer has explored and will continue to explore opportunistic settlements of certain matters and has settled certain matters,” the New York-based company said by email.
“The company has not sold a Zantac product in more than fifteen years and only for a limited period.”
No cases of cancer have been officially linked to Zantac, the WHO says, although thousands of patients claim otherwise.
Animal studies have shown that NDMA can increase the risk of cancer in the esophagus, kidneys and stomach. They have also been linked to colorectal cancer, which is on the rise among young Americans.
The FDA has ordered the removal from shelves of all products containing rantidine — the active ingredient in Zantac — by 2020 and urged patients to stop taking medications containing the ingredient.