Pfizer has agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits accusing the big pharma giant of hiding the cancer risks of their anti-heartburn medication Zantac.
The lawsuits were filed in courts across the US, but the agreements don’t completely resolve Pfizer’s exposure to the claims that linked the drug to cancer.
The Pfizer agreements cover cases in US state courts but don’t completely resolve the company’s exposure to Zantac claims, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News.
BYPASS THE CENSORS
Sign up to get unfiltered news delivered straight to your inbox.
You can unsubscribe any time. By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use
Financial details of the deals were not immediately available.
The Mail Online reports: The financial details have not been revealed but pharma rival Sanofi agreed to pay more than $100million to resolve 4,000 Zantac-cancer claims last nonth.
The over-the-counter pill was pulled in the US in 2020 after animal studies found a key ingredient released ‘probable human carcinogens’.
Pfizer was the primary manufacturer of Zantac from 1998 to 2006, when several suits claim it should have known that the drug was contaminated with NDMA.
Plaintiffs claimed the drug was contaminated with the impurity through improper manufacturing practices, and that Pfizer withheld this information from consumers.
NDMA is a chemical byproduct of many industrial manufacturing processes, including the production of rocket fuel.
It’s also common in low quantities in many foods, such as cured or smoked meats, fish and beer as well as tobacco smoke.
NDMA is a ‘forever chemical,’ meaning that it doesn’t degrade, or break down, naturally in our bodies and is believed to cause DNA damage.
Since the drug was pulled and reformulated, thousands of lawsuits began piling up in federal and state courts against Pfizer, GSK, Sanofi and Boehringer Ingelheim, who have all owned the rights to the medication.
