On October 26, 2020, the company logo of the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline appeared at the Stevenage plant in the United Kingdom.
Matthew Childs | Reuters
LONDON — Shares in British pharmaceutical giants GSK Shares plunged 9% on Monday after a U.S. court ruled that scientific evidence could be presented in a series of lawsuits related to discontinued heartburn drug Zantac.
A Delaware court ruled late Friday that plaintiffs’ expert witnesses can testify in some 75,000 cases alleging that the once-popular drug ranitidine, sold under the brand name Zantac in the United States, may cause cancer.
“This case was always about educating the jury about the science,” attorney Brent Wisner of Wisner Baum, which represents many of the plaintiffs, said in a statement.
The dispute has been going on for years and involves numerous pharmaceutical companies. Zantac was sold as a prescription drug by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in the 1980s and then became an over-the-counter drug after the patent expired in the late 1990s. Owners include France’s GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) SanofiPfizer of the United States and Boehringer Ingelheim of Germany.
The drug has been withdrawn European and us The drug was launched in 2019 and 2020 following safety reviews by regulators amid concerns it contained a possible carcinogen called NDMA.
The companies involved deny the scientific consensus that the drug may be linked to any subsequent cancer development.
GSK said in a statement on Friday that it disagreed with Delaware’s latest ruling and would seek an immediate appeal.
It said the decision contradicted a December 2022 federal court ruling in multidistrict litigation that dismissed all cases alleging five cancer types. It added that the court’s decision only concerned whether the methods used by the plaintiff’s experts were sufficiently reliable to be admitted as evidence at trial.
“Based on 16 epidemiological studies with human data on ranitidine use, the scientific consensus is that there is no consistent or reliable evidence that ranitidine increases the risk of any cancer,” GlaxoSmithKline said.
Sanofi, which was named in about 25,000 of the 75,000 cases, said in a statement on Friday that it was disappointed in the decision not to exclude the plaintiffs’ experts from the case and would appeal. Sanofi shares fell 1% on Monday.
CNBC has contacted Pfizer and Boehringer Ingelheim for comment. financial times reported last month Pfizer has agreed to pay $200 million to $250 million to settle more than 10,000 Zantac lawsuits in Delaware. CNBC has not independently confirmed the amount.
Analysts at Jefferies reported in late May that an Illinois jury found GlaxoSmithKline and Boehringer Ingelheim not liable for colorectal cancer in the first Zantac case to go to trial. It indicates that GlaxoSmithKline may have a tailwind.
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