Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has reportedly agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits about cancer risks related to its heartburn drug Zantac.

“The agreements cover cases in U.S. state courts but don’t completely resolve the company’s exposure to Zantac claims, the report said, adding that financial details of the deals were not immediately available,” Reuters reports.

Per Reuters:

In 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asked drugmakers to pull Zantac and its generic versions off the market after a cancer-causing substance called NDMA was found in samples of the drug.

Thousands of lawsuits began piling up in federal and state courts against Pfizer, GSK, Sanofi and Boehringer Ingelheim.

From the New York Post:

Last month, Sanofi reached an agreement in principle to settle 4,000 lawsuits linking Zantac to cancer.

Sanofi did not disclose the financial terms of the deal, but Bloomberg News reported that the company will pay $100 million — or $25,000 to each plaintiff.

The agreement, which still needs to be finalized, will resolve most of the lawsuits against the French pharmaceutical company in US state courts, with the exception of Delaware where the majority of the cases are pending.

Sanofi still faces about 20,000 lawsuits over Zantac in Delaware state court.

A judge in Delaware Superior Court in Wilmington is weighing the fate of about 70,000 cases filed against Sanofi and other defendants, including GSK, Pfizer and Boehringer Ingelheim.

“Sanofi is settling these cases, not because we believe the claims have any merit, but rather to avoid the expense and ongoing distraction of the litigation,” a Sanofi spokesperson said.

Sanofi and GSK lost an aggregate of $45 billion off of their market capitalization in the summer of 2022 after concerns about Zantac first arose.

Pfizer also made headlines after a young boy died during a clinical trial for its investigational gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Pfizer Discloses Death Of Young Boy During Clinical Trial For ‘Investigational Gene Therapy’

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