(Reuters) — GSK agreed to settle a U.S. lawsuit alleging its discontinued heartburn drug Zantac caused cancer, the British drugmaker said Friday, preventing the first such case from going to trial next month.
The company said it had reached a confidential deal with Californian resident James Goetz who says he developed bladder cancer from taking the drug.
The deal clears a near-term threat from the lawsuit and could set a precedent for thousands of cases set to go to trial next year. The drugmaker’s shares rose nearly 5%, making it the best performer on London’s blue-chip FTSE 100.
GSK said the settlement reflected its desire to avoid distraction related to protracted litigation. It did not admit any liability and said it would vigorously defend itself in any other Zantac cases.
The trial was due to start July 24, the first test of how Zantac cancer claims would fare before a jury.
Originally marketed by a forerunner of GSK, the drug was later sold by several companies, including Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim and Sanofi, as well as generic drugmakers.
Companies facing litigation scored a victory in December, when a federal judge threw out tens of thousands of Zantac cases in U.S. federal courts after finding the opinions of the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses linking the drug to cancer were not backed by science.
Apart from a small number of cases pending in California, most of the remaining Zantac U.S. litigation involves more than 75,000 cases in the state court in Delaware, with hearings likely in January.
