Delaware top court will hear drugmakers' appeal to end Zantac lawsuits
Adds response from plaintiffs' attorneys in paragraph 5
By Brendan Pierson
Aug 27 (Reuters) -Delaware's highest court said on Tuesday it will hear an appeal by GSK GSK.L and other drugmakers seeking to end more than 70,000 lawsuits claiming discontinued heartburn drug Zantac caused cancer.
GSK, Pfizer PFE.N, Sanofi SASY.PA and Boehringer Ingelheim are asking the court to overturn an order by a lower court judge allowing plaintiffs in the lawsuits to offer expert testimony on the alleged cancer link, which the companies argue is not supported by sound scientific methods. Without that testimony, the lawsuits cannot go forward.
There has been no trial or final judgment in any of the Zantac lawsuits in Delaware. The state's top court hears appeals before final judgment only when it finds that there are exceptional circumstances.
GSK said in a statement that it was "pleased that the Supreme Court is of the view that such circumstances are present here."
Jennifer Moore and Brent Wisner, lawyers for the plaintiffs, said in a joint statement that they were "confident that the (Supreme) Court will reach the same conclusion that the trial court did."
Business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, had urged the state Supreme Court to take the case, arguing that the lower court ruling would turn traditionally business-friendly Delaware into a "hotbed" of mass tort litigation if allowed to stand.
First approved by U.S. regulators in 1983, Zantac became the world's best-selling medicine in 1988 and one of the first to top $1 billion in annual sales. It was sold at different times by the four companies, all of which have faced thousands of lawsuits.
The litigation began after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2020 asked manufacturers to pull the drug off the market over concerns that ranitidine, the active ingredient in Zantac and generic versions of the drug, could degrade into NDMA, a carcinogen, over time or when exposed to heat.
Three Zantac cases so far have gone to trial, all in Illinois, with two ending in verdicts for the defense and one with a hung jury.
The drugmakers won a significant victory in 2022, when a federal judge in Florida rejected the plaintiffs' expert witnesses in about 50,000 cases on the grounds that they did not use reliable scientific methods. While the experts were different from those at issue in Delaware, the legal arguments made by both sides were similar.
Some of the Florida cases are being appealed, and the vast majority of the remaining cases are in Delaware.
Sanofi has agreed to settle about 4,000 cases against it, while Pfizer has reportedly agreed to settle more than 10,000. The companies have also settled some individual cases before trial.
Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Jonathan Oatis
Actifs liés
Dernières actualités
Avertissement : Les entités de XM Group proposent à notre plateforme de trading en ligne un service d'exécution uniquement, autorisant une personne à consulter et/ou à utiliser le contenu disponible sur ou via le site internet, qui n'a pas pour but de modifier ou d'élargir cette situation. De tels accès et utilisation sont toujours soumis aux : (i) Conditions générales ; (ii) Avertissements sur les risques et (iii) Avertissement complet. Un tel contenu n'est par conséquent fourni que pour information générale. En particulier, sachez que les contenus de notre plateforme de trading en ligne ne sont ni une sollicitation ni une offre de participation à toute transaction sur les marchés financiers. Le trading sur les marchés financiers implique un niveau significatif de risques pour votre capital.
Tout le matériel publié dans notre Centre de trading en ligne est destiné à des fins de formation / d'information uniquement et ne contient pas – et ne doit pas être considéré comme contenant – des conseils et recommandations en matière de finance, de fiscalité des investissements ou de trading, ou un enregistrement de nos prix de trading ou une offre, une sollicitation, une transaction à propos de tout instrument financier ou bien des promotions financières non sollicitées à votre égard.
Tout contenu tiers, de même que le contenu préparé par XM, tels que les opinions, actualités, études, analyses, prix, autres informations ou liens vers des sites tiers contenus sur ce site internet sont fournis "tels quels", comme commentaires généraux sur le marché et ne constituent pas des conseils en investissement. Dans la mesure où tout contenu est considéré comme de la recherche en investissement, vous devez noter et accepter que le contenu n'a pas été conçu ni préparé conformément aux exigences légales visant à promouvoir l'indépendance de la recherche en investissement et, en tant que tel, il serait considéré comme une communication marketing selon les lois et réglementations applicables. Veuillez vous assurer que vous avez lu et compris notre Avis sur la recherche en investissement non indépendante et notre avertissement sur les risques concernant les informations susdites, qui peuvent consultés ici.
