Sept 18 (Askume) – The latest trial into claims that discontinued heartburn drug Zantac caused cancer ended with a split jury on Wednesday as a Chicago juror failed to decide whether Boehringer Ingelheim should pay compensation to an Illinois man it struck a deal with.
It is the second time in a series of trials over the now-discontinued drug that a jury has failed to reach a verdict.
“We appreciate the jury’s careful consideration,” Eric Olson, an attorney for plaintiff Ronald Kimbrough, said in an email. “So far, Boehringer Ingelheim has twice failed to convince the jury that Zantac is safe.”
He said that the case would be heard again.
“We are pleased that plaintiffs once again failed to convince a jury of their unfounded allegations about Zantac,” Boehringer Ingelheim said in a statement.
The privately held German drugmaker became the sole defendant in the Cook County Circuit Court lawsuit after plaintiff Ronald Kimbro settled with other companies, including GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L) and Pfizer (PFE.EN) , which originally developed the drug .
Kimbro, 73, said he took Zantac from 1995 to 2019.
Boehringer Ingelheim, GSK, Pfizer and Sanofi SASY.PA have all sold the Zantac brand at various times since it was approved in 1983, and have been implicated in thousands of lawsuits over alleged links to cancer.
The lawsuit began in 2020, when the FDA asked the manufacturer to remove the drug from the market because of concerns that its active ingredient, ranitidine, could leach NDMA, which turns into NDMA over time or at high temperatures.
There have been three previous trials against Zantak, all in Illinois, two of whichThe verdict was in favor of the defenseAnd for the second time, the jury was split .
Drug manufacturers scored a major victory in 2022 when a federal judge in Florida excluded plaintiffs’ expert witnesses in nearly 50,000 cases for not using solid scientific methods. Although some plaintiffs are appealing, the case cannot proceed without these witnesses.
The Delaware Supreme Court said last month that it would consider drugmakers’ efforts to keep similar expert testimony out of state courts, where more than 70,000 lawsuits have been filed (the vast majority of the remaining lawsuits). A lower court judge refused to exclude the expert and allowed the case to proceed.
Sanofi has agreed to settle nearly 4,000 cases against the company , while Pfizer has also reportedly agreed to settleAn agreement has been reached to resolve more than 10,000 cases .
