Sanofi has announced it reached an agreement in principle to resolve approximately 4,000 claims over allegations linking its heartburn medication, Zantac, to cancer.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the company said the financial details of the agreement are confidential.
The agreement aims to settle the majority of lawsuits against the French pharmaceutical company in U.S. state courts, excluding Delaware, where the bulk of the cases are currently pending.
According to WSJ, Sanofi said it has not admitted any liability and maintains its position that the plaintiffs’ allegations regarding Zantac’s link to cancer lack merit.
“Sanofi has vigorously defended the Zantac litigation since the outset and will continue to do so,” it said in a statement.
The company declined to disclose the payout amount under the agreement but assured that it would not significantly affect its financial standing.
Sanofi continues to fight approximately 20,000 lawsuits in Delaware state court, according to Reuters. A judge in Delaware Superior Court in Wilmington is deliberating on the outcome of roughly 70,000 cases filed against Sanofi and other defendants, including GSK, Pfizer, and Boehringer Ingelheim.
All the defendant companies are currently awaiting a ruling from the judge regarding the adequacy of scientific evidence supporting the plaintiffs’ allegations of Zantac’s cancer-causing properties. However, in 2022, approximately 50,000 lawsuits with similar claims were dismissed by another judge after being consolidated in federal court in Florida.
Zantac, first approved in 1983, became the world’s best selling medicine in 1988 and one of the first drugs to top $1 billion in annual sales.
Jennifer Moore and Brent Wisner, serving as the lead plaintiffs’ attorneys in the Delaware and California litigation, said on Wednesday that they were pleased to hear Sanofi’s settlement amid ongoing litigation against other defendants.
Moore said: “We are pushing forward aggressively against GSK and Boehringer Ingelheim and are preparing for multiple trials in California state court this year.”
According to Bloomberg, the anticipated settlement is expected to provide relief to investors, who had been anxious about Sanofi’s and other drugmakers’ vulnerability to Zantac-related lawsuits.
Concerns over such exposure had led to a collective loss of approximately $45 billion in market value for these companies’ stocks during the summer of 2022. However, since then, share prices have rebounded.
