© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Zantac heartburn pills are seen in this illustration taken October 1, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/Illustration
2/2
by Brendan Pierson
(Reuters) – Lawyers for a man who alleges he developed bladder cancer after taking GSK Plc’s heartburn drug Zantac urged a California judge on Thursday to allow expert testimony linking the drug to the disease in an upcoming trial.
Trial in the case, brought by California resident James Goetz, is scheduled to begin February 27 before Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo. He will offer the first taste of how Zantac’s cancer claims can fare in state courts, and his outcome could depend heavily on the expert testimony Grillo allows.
In December, a federal judge threw out all of the Zantac cases in federal court, some 50,000, after finding that the expert opinions presented by the plaintiffs to establish that their cancer was caused by the drug were not supported by solid science.
Tens of thousands of cases still remain in state courts, many consolidated before Grillo in California.
Wisner, a lawyer for Goetz and other Zantac plaintiffs, argued that jurors should hear expert testimony about studies he called “pretty strong evidence that there is a causal relationship” between taking Zantac’s active ingredient ranitidine and cancer.
GSK has denied that the drug can cause cancer.
“Obviously our position is, no, it’s not like that,” GSK lawyer Kimberly Branscome said at the hearing, which was viewed by Reuters via Courtroom View Network.
Zantac, first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1983, became the world’s best-selling drug in 1988 and one of the first drugs to exceed $1 billion in annual sales.
Originally marketed by a precursor to GSK, it was later successively sold to Pfizer Inc (NYSE:), Boehringer Ingelheim and finally Sanofi (NASDAQ:) SA The four drugmakers are facing lawsuits over Zantac and have denied that the pill causes cancer.
In 2019, some manufacturers and pharmacies halted sales of the drug over concerns that its active ingredient, ranitidine, would break down over time to form a chemical called NDMA. Although NDMA is found at low levels in food and water, it is known to cause cancer in higher amounts.
In 2020, the FDA recalled all remaining generic and brand-name versions of Zantac, citing research showing that the amount of NDMA in products increases the longer the drug is stored and could potentially become unsafe.
Lawsuits began piling up shortly after recalls began from people who said they developed cancer after taking Zantac. The plaintiffs said the companies knew, or should have known, that ranitidine posed a cancer risk and failed to warn consumers.
Cases have been filed linking Zantac to at least 10 types of cancer. The now-dismissed federal litigation was limited to cancers of the bladder, stomach, esophagus, liver and pancreas, but cases involving other types of cancer continue in state courts.
