British pharmaceutical firm GSK mentioned Wednesday it has agreed to pay $2.3 billion in the US to place an finish to lawsuits alleging that its Zantac heartburn drug brought about most cancers.
“GSK in the present day introduced that it has reached agreements with 10 plaintiff corporations who collectively characterize 93 p.c (roughly 80,000) of the Zantac state court docket product legal responsibility instances pending in opposition to GSK,” the corporate mentioned in a press release.
Below the settlement, whose phrases are confidential, GSK will make an “mixture fee of as much as $2.2 billion” to resolve these instances, the assertion added.
The corporate additionally mentioned on Wednesday that it had reached one other settlement in precept to pay $70 million to settle a separate Zantac case with US laboratory Valisure — which continues to be topic to remaining approval by the US Division of Justice.
Class motion and private harm lawsuits have been filed in US courts after the Meals and Drug Administration warned in 2019 that some ranitidine medication together with Zantac contained low ranges of an environmental contaminant thought-about a possible carcinogen.
Nonetheless the pharmaceutical large mentioned it “has not admitted any legal responsibility” by settling the case as “the scientific consensus stays that there isn’t any constant or dependable proof” that ranitidine is carcinogenic.
The over-the-counter therapy, identified additionally by its non-commercial identify ranitidine, was manufactured by a number of rivals together with the French group Sanofi and US drugmaker Pfizer earlier than it was withdrawn in 2019.
Lately GSK has received a number of court docket instances on the difficulty in the US, whereas signing a number of different settlements to keep away from litigation.
