Zantac didn’t cause 89-year-old woman’s cancer, jury says in first trial over drug

A jury in Chicago on Thursday rejected an Illinois woman’s claim that the now discontinued heartburn drug Zantac caused her colon cancer, in the first trial out of thousands of lawsuits making similar allegations.

The jury in Cook County, Ill. circuit court agreed with arguments from drugmakers GSK and Boehringer Ingelheim that the plaintiff, 89-year-old Illinois resident Angela Valadez, had not proven her colon cancer was at least in part caused by her Zantac use.

Valadez had alleged that her cancer was a result of taking over-the-counter Zantac and generic versions of it from 1995 to 2014. The lawsuits over the drug say its active ingredient, ranitidine, under some conditions turns into a cancer-causing substance called NDMA.

Attorneys for Valadez had asked the jury to award $640 million for her suffering. The judge rejected Valadez’s request to seek punitive damages during the trial, according to her attorneys.

Mikal Watts, one of Valadez’s attorneys, said he respected the jury’s verdict but was confident the companies would be held liable in future Zantac trials. “This is a marathon, not a sprint,” he said.

Both GSK and Boehringer said in statements that the verdict was consistent with scientific evidence that Zantac does not cause cancer, and that they would vigorously defend themselves against future claims.

Britain-based GSK, whose predecessor developed the drug but later sold the brand to other companies, and German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim, which sold the medicine from 2006 until 2017, were the only defendants in the trial after the other companies settled.

Valadez’s case was the first to go to trial after all cases previously set for trial settled.

Watts said at the trial that began on May 2 that the companies knew that ranitidine would turn into NDMA as it aged or was exposed to extreme temperatures, but did not ensure it was properly handled by transporters, distributors and stores.

Attorneys for GSK and Boehringer countered that Zantac has been repeatedly proven to be safe and effective and that no scientific or medical study has connected Zantac to cancer.

The companies attorneys also argued at trial that there was no evidence to support Valadez’s claim that she had taken Zantac for 18 years, and that she had a host of risk factors that made her more likely to develop colon cancer.

First approved in 1983, Zantac became the world’s best selling medicine in 1988 and one of the first-ever to top $1 billion in annual sales.