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Delaware Supreme Court sides with Zantac drugmakers over evidence
- 7/10/2025
(Reuters) -Delaware's highest court ruled on Thursday that nearly 75,000 patients suing four large drugmakers cannot introduce reports from several experts to support their claim that the heartburn drug Zantac caused them to develop cancer.
In a 5-0 decision, the Delaware Supreme Court sided with the drugmakers GSK, Pfizer, Sanofi and Boehringer Ingelheim.
The case has been closely watched by business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which have expressed fear that an adverse outcome could erode Delaware's reputation as a business safe haven by encouraging mass tort litigation.
Justice Abigail LeGrow said the trial judge erred by adopting a legal standard that presumed expert testimony was admissible, and failed to require the plaintiffs' experts to use "reliable scientific methodology" to reach their conclusions.
Zantac was approved by U.S. regulators in 1983, and within five years was the world's best-selling medicine.
Lawsuits against the drug's manufacturers began piling up after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2020 asked that Zantac be pulled from the market.
That reflected concern that ranitidine, which was marketed as Zantac, could degrade into the carcinogen NDMA over time or when exposed to heat.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Diane Craft)