Drugmakers Agree Zantac Carcinogen Suits Should Go to New Jersey

Sanofi US Services Inc. and other companies that sold branded Zantac products agree with some plaintiffs that suits linking the popular antacids to cancer should proceed in New Jersey.

Plaintiffs in five suits urged the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation earlier this month to send the litigation to the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

The state is home to defendants Sanofi US Services and Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC, which are named in many pending suits and manufactured and distributed the drug in the U.S. from about January 2017 until an Oct. 18, 2019, recall, plaintiffs said.

Zantac, chemically known as ranitidine, contains unsafe levels of the carcinogen NDMA, the suits say. Unlike certain generic blood pressure drugs, in which NDMA is an impurity caused by shoddy manufacturing, the NDMA in Zantac is inherent to the drug’s molecular structure and how it’s broken down in the body, the plaintiffs said.

The blood pressure drug litigation was recently consolidated in the District of New Jersey.

Plaintiffs also sued Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Pfizer Inc., which previously owned the rights to over-the-counter Zantac in the U.S., and GlaxoSmithKline plc, which developed the drug.

Those companies and Sanofi said in a joint briefNov. 27 that the allegations “are premised on the findings of a single online pharmacy, Valisure,” using a methodology questioned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Centralization is appropriate and the District of New Jersey the most convenient venue, the companies said. Judge Freda L. Wolfson oversees the Zantac suits already filed there, they said. Her “extensive experience with similar MDLs makes her the ideal transferee judge for what will likely be a complex and challenging litigation to manage, they said.”

The litigation includes proposed class suits in which plaintiffs seek a full refund for Zantac purchases, as well as personal injury litigation by plaintiffs alleging they developed cancer as a result of years of Zantac use.

Other plaintiffs want the suits combined in the Northern District of California or the Southern District of Florida.

Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP; Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman P.C.; and Levin Papantonio Thomas Mitchell Rafferty & Proctor P.A. represent the plaintiffs. Covington & Burling LLP represents Boehringer Ingelheim. Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer represents Sanofi US Services Inc., Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC, and unit Chattem Inc. Williams & Connolly LLP represents Pfizer. Dechert LLP represents GlaxoSmithKline.

The case is In re Zantac (Ranitidine) Prod. Liab. Litig., J.P.M.L., MDL No. 2924, reponse 11/27/19.