A second Zantac cancer trial ends with hung jury

By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) – The latest trial over claims that the discontinued heartburn drug Zantac causes cancer ended with a hung jury on Wednesday, as jurors in Chicago were unable to agree on whether Boehringer Ingelheim must pay damages to an Illinois man who said he developed prostate cancer as a result of taking the drug, according to the man’s lawyer.

It was the second time a jury failed to reach a verdict at trial during the ongoing wave of litigation over the now-discontinued drug.

“We appreciate the jury’s careful consideration,” Eric Olson, a lawyer for plaintiff Ronald Kimbrow, said in an email. “Boehringer Ingelheim has now twice failed to convince a jury that Zantac was safe.”

He said the case would go to trial again. Boehringer Ingelheim did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The privately held German drugmaker was the only defendant at the trial in Cook County Circuit Court, after plaintiff Ronald Kimbrow settled with others including GSK, which originally developed the drug, and Pfizer (NYSE:).

Kimbrow, 73, said he took Zantac from 1995 to 2019.

Boehringer Ingelheim, GSK, Pfizer and Sanofi (NASDAQ:) all sold brand name Zantac at various times since it was approved in 1983, and have been named in tens of thousands of lawsuits over the alleged cancer link.

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 its active ingredient, ranitidine, could degrade into NDMA, a carcinogen, over time or when exposed to heat.

Three lawsuits over Zantac had previously 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 for about 50,000 cases that had been centralized in her court on the grounds that they did not use reliable scientific methods. Without those witnesses, the cases could not go forward, though some plaintiffs are appealing.

The Delaware Supreme Court last month said it would consider drugmakers’ bid to keep similar expert testimony out of court in that state, where more than 70,000 lawsuits – the vast majority of the remaining litigation – have been brought. A lower court judge refused to exclude the experts, allowing the cases to go forward.

Sanofi has agreed to settle about 4,000 cases against it, while Pfizer has reportedly agreed to settle more than 10,000.