The Delaware Supreme Court will hear the drug makers’ appeal to end the Zantac lawsuits

Delaware’s highest court said Tuesday it will hear an appeal by GSK and other drugmakers seeking to end more than 70,000 lawsuits alleging that Zantac, the discontinued heartburn drug, caused cancer.

GSK, Pfizer, Sanofi and Boehringer Ingelheim are asking the court to overturn a lower court judge’s order allowing plaintiffs in the lawsuits to provide expert testimony about the alleged link to cancer, which the companies say is not supported by the methods solid science.

First approved by US regulators in 1983, Zantac became the world’s best-selling drug in 1988 and one of the first to surpass $1 billion in annual sales. It was sold at different times by the four companies, all of which faced thousands of lawsuits.

The litigation began after the US 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 have gone to trial so far, with two ending in verdicts for the defense and one with a hung jury.

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