GSK settles first Zantac cancer lawsuit due for US trial

GSK agreed to settle a U.S. lawsuit alleging its discontinued heartburn drug Zantac caused cancer, preventing the first such case from going to trial next month.

The company said it had reached a confidential deal with California resident James Goetz who alleged he developed bladder cancer from taking the drug. The trial was due to start on July 24, and would have been the first test of how Zantac cancer claims would fare before a jury.

The deal could set a precedent for thousands of cases set to go to trial next year. The drugmaker's shares rose nearly 5%, making it the best performer on London's blue-chip FTSE 100.

The company still faces more than 5,000 similar lawsuits in California and close to 73,000 in Delaware. No trials are currently scheduled.

Originally marketed by a forerunner of GSK, the drug was later sold by several companies, including Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim and Sanofi, as well as generic drugmakers.

Companies facing litigation scored a victory in December, when a federal judge threw out tens of thousands of Zantac cases in U.S. federal courts after finding that science did not back the opinions of the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses linking the drug to cancer. Pfizer and Sanofi settled with Goetz late last year.

Concerns about protracted legal wrangling and compensation wiped almost $40 billion off the market value of GSK, Sanofi, Pfizer and GSK-spin-off Haleon over roughly a week in August.

First approved in 1983, Zantac became one of the first drugs to top $1 billion in annual sales.

In 2019, some manufacturers and pharmacies halted Zantac sales over concerns that its active ingredient, ranitidine, degraded over time to form a chemical called NDMA. While NDMA can be present in low levels in food and water, research has found it causes cancer in larger amounts.

The FDA in 2020 withdrew from the market all remaining brand name Zantac and generic versions, triggering a wave of lawsuits. The companies involved have repeatedly denied that Zantac can cause cancer.