Products Liability
There has been a lot of bad Zantac lawsuit news. Remarkably, all of this negative news centers on one person’s assessment of the scientific merit of these lawsuits.
However, this litigation has taken a turn again in 2025, at least somewhat. We have a new Zantac settlement resolving most of the GSK lawsuits. And a Delaware judge has given the green light for 75,000 cases pending in Delaware to proceed. So it is all systems go in the fight to get fair Zantac settlement amounts for victims.
Zantac Lawsuit Update
Here are the latest Zantac news and updates in this back-and-forth litigation:
August 28, 2025: Plaintiffs took another loss in a Zantac colorectal cancer lawsuit in Illinois. It marked the eighth Zantac-related trial where jurors either ruled in favor of Boehringer Ingelheim or failed to reach a verdict. Juries do not see to be buying what plaintiffs’ lawyers are selling in these cases, a fact we would have believed when this litigation started.
August 7, 2025: At one point, Zantac looked like the next major big thing: a widely used drug, a recall prompted by carcinogenic contamination, and mountains of internal data suggesting companies knew or should have known about NDMA risks. Plaintiffs were positioned to make a sweeping case about corporate responsibility and public health failure. But then came the setbacks, especially the Daubert ruling in federal court, which dismissed all MDL cases based on expert admissibility, despite conflicting rulings in state courts.
Now, even after a major Delaware Supreme Court decision demanding stricter scrutiny of expert evidence, GSK has quietly settled tens of thousands of claims for a reported $2.2 billion. On paper, that’s a win for plaintiffs. But there is a lingering sense that the litigation never fully realized its potential. No trial wins yet. No nationwide bellwether verdicts.
Victims will still get compensation and we might start winning these at some point. But securing full justice seems unlikely.
Our lawyers are still taking cases, and hearing this does not make you race to pick up the phone to call us. But this is the reality.
July 10, 2025: In a unanimous decision, the Delaware Supreme Court ruled that plaintiffs in nearly 75,000 pending Zantac lawsuits cannot rely on expert testimony alleging a causal link between ranitidine (Zantac) and cancer unless it meets stringent scientific reliability standards. The court chastised the lower court for “presuming” the admissibility of expert opinions, marking a major victory for drugmakers including GSK, Pfizer, Sanofi, and Boehringer Ingelheim. Rather than dismissing the claims, however, the rulings sent the cases back to trial courts for a fresh evaluation of the science.
This is not good news. At all.
June 22, 2025: A Connecticut judge suggested he is unlikely to throw out a Zantac cancer lawsuit filed by the estate of a man who died in 2024, even though similar claims are pending in Delaware. The pharmaceutical companies—Sanofi, Pfizer, and Boehringer—pushed to dismiss the case under a procedural rule about duplicative lawsuits, but the judge pointed out that existing Connecticut law does not allow a case to be dismissed just because a similar one is pending in another state.
The drugmakers attempted to cite recent Connecticut cases to support their argument, but the judge rebuked them for presenting new case law to the plaintiffs at the last minute. He plans to review those cases but indicated it may be easier to put the case on hold than dismiss it entirely.
Importantly, this is the same judge who already let other plaintiffs in the broader 2023 Zantac litigation move forward, signaling that he sees legal merit in these claims. The drugmakers argue they should not be held responsible for generic versions of Zantac, but the plaintiffs say the brand-name companies controlled the drug’s design and labeling and should be held accountable for cancer risks linked to ranitidine.
In short, this ruling keeps the door open for Zantac cancer victims in Connecticut, and it reinforces the idea that brand-name drugmakers cannot use procedural technicalities to escape liability.
June 17, 2025: In a new lawsuit filed yesterday, a Nebraska resident brought claims in the Superior Court of Delaware against Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Patheon Manufacturing Services LLC, alleging that prolonged use of over-the-counter Zantac caused him to develop prostate cancer. The plaintiff, who began using ranitidine in approximately 2010 and continued through 2019, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in July 2023. He contends, as all Zantac suits do, that his exposure to NDMA caused the cancer.
The ranitidine molecule is chemically unstable and naturally breaks down into NDMA when exposed to heat and humidity, and also forms NDMA endogenously in the stomach. The lawsuit alleges that for decades, the defendants were aware of the potential for NDMA formation but failed to warn consumers, suppressing internal studies and misleading both regulators and the public. The plaintiff asserts that he would not have used the drug had he been properly warned of the risks.
The complaint seeks damages under theories of strict liability, negligence, and fraudulent concealment, and includes claims for punitive damages. It details how internal studies and scientific literature, dating back to the 1980s, linked ranitidine to NDMA formation, yet the defendants continued manufacturing and marketing the drug without disclosing these risks. This case is one of many involving claims over NDMA contamination in ranitidine products, and is part of a growing wave of litigation surrounding the recalled medication.
June 6, 2025: The federal appeal in the Zantac multidistrict litigation (MDL No. 2924) remains pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
This appeal challenges the December 2022 decision by Judge Robin L. Rosenberg of the Southern District of Florida, who dismissed all federal Zantac cases after excluding plaintiffs’ expert testimony on general causation. The court found that the expert opinions did not meet the admissibility standards under the Daubert rule, leading to the dismissal of thousands of cases.
A significant aspect of the appeal involves the “innovator liability” theory. This legal doctrine posits that brand-name drug manufacturers can be held liable for injuries caused by generic versions of their drugs, based on the argument that they are responsible for the original labeling and warnings. While some state courts, such as California’s in the T.H. v. Novartis case, have accepted this theory, the federal court in the Zantac MDL rejected it, predicting that most states would not adopt such a stance.
June 3, 2025: In a new lawsuit filed yesterday, a New York resident has sued GlaxoSmithKline LLC, GlaxoSmithKline Holdings (Americas), Inc., Pfizer Inc., Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Boehringer Ingelheim USA Corporation, Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC, Sanofi US Services Inc., and Patheon Manufacturing Services LLC in Delaware Superior Court, alleging that her use of Zantac and its generic forms caused her to develop kidney cancer.
Her Zantac suit claims she regularly consumed both prescription and over-the-counter ranitidine-containing medications from approximately 2000 to 2018. As a result of this long-term use, she was diagnosed with kidney cancer, underwent multiple hospitalizations, surgeries, and treatments, and continues to suffer from permanent physical injuries. Kidney cancer claims are certainly among the strongest in this litigation.
The plaintiff alleges that she would not have taken ranitidine had she known it could expose users to NDMA, a probable human carcinogen. She asserts that her injuries were caused by the defendants’ failure to warn consumers, their manufacture and sale of an unreasonably dangerous drug, and their decades-long concealment of critical safety data—specifically the instability of ranitidine and its tendency to degrade into NDMA under normal conditions. She seeks compensatory and punitive damages for her injuries, emotional distress, and economic losses, emphasizing that the product’s labeling and safety information were inadequate during the time she used it.
About Zantac and Cancer
Zantac (ranitidine) belongs to a family of drugs called histamine-2 or H2 blockers. Ranitidine and other H2 blockers decrease the acid produced in the stomach. H2 blockers are called “antacids,” and the Zantac OTC versions are commonly used to treat and prevent heartburn (gastroesophageal reflux disease or GERD) and peptic ulcer disease. Prescription-strength Zantac is used to treat very severe heartburn and more serious conditions such as stomach/intestinal ulcers.
Zantac has been a very popular antacid drug since the 1980s. It was the 50th most prescribed drug with 15 million prescriptions a year. Millions more purchased the medication and its generic equivalent over the counter. Many taking Zantac had just mild gastroesophageal reflux disease and would have never taken the drug unless someone had advised them of the risk of developing cancer.
This drug was initially developed by the European pharmaceutical company Glaxo (n/k/a GlaxoSmithKline). It was approved as a prescription drug in the United States in 1983. Glaxo invested millions aggressively promoting the drug to doctors and the general public.
Zantac became one of the best-selling drugs in pharmaceutical history. It was the first medication to reach $1 billion in annual U.S. sales. Drugmakers made a fortune.
One of the keys to the marketing strategy was the emphasis that this acid reflux drug worked well – which it did – and that it was safe and harmless. But, as anyone reading this likely knows, ranitidine (the active ingredient in Zantac) lab testing found high levels of a chemical called NDMA. This contaminant is known to cause cancer.
In September 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a public safety warning about possible cancer risks from Zantac. In the wake of the FDA safety warning, there has been a Zantac recall and ranitidine medications have been abruptly pulled from shelves across the country.
The total number of filed MDL Zantac cancer lawsuits as of September 2022 is 2,000. But over 70,000 census forms have been filled. (This results from a tolling agreement that pushes back the statute of limitations if you properly register your claim.).
The gist of the Zantac lawsuit is straightforward. Plaintiffs allege that Zantac degrades over time and from exposure to heat and moisture, like most drugs. But unlike most drugs, Zantac degrades into dangerous levels of NDMA, a chemical most experts agree causes cancer. Thousands of people have filed Zantac cancer lawsuits alleging that they developed cancer due to their high levels of NDMA exposure.
N-Nitrosodimethylamine (“NDMA”) is an unstable organic chemical usually created unintentionally as a byproduct of specific industrial processes. NDMA is very toxic to the human body (especially the liver) and has been recognized as a carcinogen since the 1970s. Dimethylhydrazine, the “D” in NDMA, is a component of rocket fuel. Rocket fuel is about as healthy as you think.
NDMA Causes Cancer
Does Zantac cause cancer? It is hard to construct an argument against the notion that Zantac causes cancer. The evidence that NDMA causes cancer is overwhelming. No ranitidine lawsuit defendant will dispute that this contaminant is a carcinogen. (Update: This is wrong. Zantac defense lawyers struggle to admit the sky is blue.)
NDMA has repeatedly caused cancer in every animal lab test in the last 40 years. Zantac has the constituent molecules to form NDMA. Ranitidine medications degrade from chemical reactions caused by heat, humidity, and time into NDMA. They also degrade in the Zantac user’s stomach, particularly interacting with foods high in nitrates. There is further concern about how Zantac can degrade over time to form NDMA, necessitating shorter expiration dates and warnings about the associated risks.
So NDMA causes cancer. The compound is also listed as a probable human carcinogen by the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and various other organizations. The CDC points out the risks of NDM, even at low doses. Calling this contaminant a “probable carcinogen” is a dramatic understatement of the case.
The lawsuits claim the defendants knew NDMA causes cancer and the Zantac and continued to expose users to unsafe levels of NDMA. The defendants failed to disclose this risk to consumers on the drug’s label or through any other means and did not report these risks to the FDA. Research dating back to 1981, before Zantac entered the market, showed elevated rates of NDMA in Zantac.
So a core claim is that he defendants concealed the link between Zantac and NDMA from consumers by not reporting it to the FDA, which relies on drug manufacturers to bring new information about an approved drug to the agency’s attention. Manufacturers are required by regulation to submit an annual report to the FDA containing new information regarding the drug’s safety, including unpublished reports and summaries of published reports of new toxicological findings.
Defendants ignored these regulations and did not report significant new information affecting the safety or labeling of Zantac to the FDA. They never conducted or provided relevant studies to the FDA, nor proposed a disclosure noting the link between ranitidine and NDMA.
Because they never stepped up and properly disclosed the risk, they never proposed any labeling or storage/transportation guidelines that would have addressed this NDMA risk, preventing the FDA from rejecting any proposed warning or proposal for transport/storage. You have to keep in mind, too, that multiple alternatives to Zantac, such as Cimetidine (Tagamet), Famotidine (Pepcid), Omeprazole (Prilosec), Esomeprazole (Nexium), and Lansoprazole (Prevacid), do not pose the same risk.
Valisure NDMA Testing Findings NMDA in Zantac
Valisure’s testing confirmed these fears, showing that ranitidine wasn’t just slightly contaminated, but producing NDMA at levels that were off the charts. According to the FDA, the maximum safe daily intake of NDMA is 96 nanograms (ng).
Valisure found that a single over-the-counter Zantac tablet contained an astronomical 2,511,469 ng of NDMA—approximately 26,000 times the FDA’s acceptable daily limit. This was a staggering revelation that highlighted the severity of the contamination issue and raised serious concerns about the long-term exposure risks faced by millions of users of Zantac and its generic equivalents.
The core issue, as Valisure pointed out in its July 2019 Citizen Petition to the FDA, lies in the inherent chemical instability of the ranitidine molecule. When exposed to normal stomach conditions, ranitidine can react with dietary nitrites – commonly found in foods such as processed meats – and generate NDMA within the body.
This endogenous formation of NDMA had been suspected decades earlier but was largely downplayed by manufacturers like GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), who were aware of ranitidine’s instability even before it was approved for market use. Internal documents from GSK, dating back to the early 1980s, revealed that the company knew ranitidine had the potential to degrade into NDMA but concealed this data from regulators and the public. Instead, they continued to aggressively market Zantac, ignoring the mounting evidence of its risks.
FDA Tests on NDMA in Zantac
In September 2019, the FDA announced that it had conducted tests on ranitidine. The FDA’s laboratory tests also found NDMA in ranitidine medications. But the FDA found much lower levels than the Valisure tests. (The FDA tests were flawed. They did not use sodium nitrate which we think everyone will ultimately agree is critical if you want reliable results.) Even the “low levels” of NDMA found in the FDA testing were considered “unacceptable” and led to a public safety warning about the cancer risks.
New Zantac Studies
In December 2020, another study came out to give us a clear picture of what happened with Zantac and NDMA. The study linked increasing NDMA levels to the degradation of hydrochloride molecules in Zantac. It also lends new credence to the theory that heat that is created when ingesting the drug might contribute to the process that increases the NDMA levels.
(This is no surprise. The over-the-counter box for Zantac states “avoid excessive heat” and to store the drug below 77°F. Was the drug transported using temperature-controlled heating systems? Typically, no.)
Two articles, both published on January 29, 2021, detailed Valisure researchers’ findings on Zantac. One of them, published in JAMA, reported on a simulation of Zantac’s reactions to gastric fluids. The other, published in MedRxiv, also found that certain conditions facilitated Zantac’s transformation into NDMA.
NDMA Concentration Study
In the JAMA article, researchers found that Zantac converts into high NDMA concentrations. They combined simulated gastric fluid (SGF) with Zantac. After two hours, a 150 mg Zantac tablet converts into 947 nanograms.
This was almost 10 times the FDA’s acceptable daily consumption limit for NDMA. The researchers also found that increased nitrate concentrations caused the same tablet to convert into 320,000 ng.
Making matters worse, Zantac forms more quickly into NDMA if consumed with nitrates. Some Zantac lawsuit defendants encouraged users to take Zantac after eating nitrate-rich foods.
Bladder Cancer
The MedRxiv article reported on a cross-section analysis of cancer patients. Valisure researchers compiled data comprising over 10,000 of them. They narrowed it down to patients who used Zantac. The researchers found a positive association between Zantac use and bladder cancer, among others. (Below, our attorneys provide cancers that Zantac OTC and prescription might cause, with the statistics provided by the studies in terms of elevated risk).
What other kinds of cancer does Zantac cause? Our Zantac cancer lawyers believe that more types of cancer are also implicated.
Defendants Daubert Motion
Defendants in these cases know how difficult it is to argue that the NDMA in Zantac does not cause cancer. They will try. But their true focus will be rejecting scientific arguments as to specific cancers that can be caused by Zantac. They will make the plaintiffs prove their cancer diagnosis is from the NDMA in Zantac.
For those types of cancer that are more challenging to link to ranitidine, you can expect the defense lawyers to file what is called a Daubert motion. The purpose of a Daubert motion is to keep those cases out of the courtroom because there is not enough scientific evidence to link a specific cancer to Zantac.
The plaintiff lost this motion badly in the MDL and the court dismissed every Zantac lawsuit filed in federal court. But state court judges have seen it differently, and the cases are proceeding in state court. Delaware is the epicenter of the Zantac litigation in 2024 and the judge there has agreed these lawsuits should go forward (this is also on appeal).
Zantac Defense Lawyers’ Plan of Attack
The defendants will continue to try to exploit what science does not yet fully understand. They will try to diminish the importance of any study that shows NDMA is a known carcinogen or that it is associated with an increased long-term risk of any specific cancer being addressed in the Zantac class action lawsuit.
For example, we do not know the specific amount of NDMA that causes an increased risk of cancer or the amount of NDMA individual plaintiffs were exposed to when they ingested Zantac. But our burden of proof is not this specific. Zantac attorneys have to make this clear to judges and juries.
Hopefully, the science will continue to deliver the evidence plaintiffs’ lawyers need before those motions are heard.
New Bladder Cancer Zantac Study
An American Journal of Gastroenterology-published study found that Zantac patients were more likely to develop bladder cancer compared to non-Zantac patients. Researchers gathered data from Scotland’s Primary Care Clinical Informatics Unit Research database.
They identified over 3,000 bladder cancer cases between 1999 and 2011. The researchers matched each case with no more than five controls. They accounted for age, gender, GP practice, and diagnosis date. The researchers identified Zantac, other H2 blockers, and proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) in the prescription records.
The researchers reported that short-term Zantac use increased the bladder cancer risk by 22 percent. Taking the drug for at least three years increased the risk of a bladder cancer diagnosis by 43 percent compared to non-users. The researchers found that proton pump inhibitor use, even long-term use, was not associated with bladder cancer. The researchers concluded that Zantac use, especially long-term use, increased the risk of bladder cancer.
What These Zantac Studies Cumulatively Show
Bigger picture, the latest studies demonstrate that the medical litigation on the association between ranitidine and Zantac continues to support plaintiffs’ attorneys’ theories of liability in the Zantac litigation of the health complications with Zantac.
Ultimately, even before the recall, there was information out there to warn of the ranitidine risk and allow patients to pursue ranitidine alternatives.
What Are Expected Individual Zantac Settlement Compensation Payouts?
Many victims in the Zantac litigation are asking what their individual compensation might look like if a global settlement is reached. While there is no official settlement yet, the reality is that most mass tort resolutions do not use flat payouts. Instead, they operate through a points-based system, where each claim is evaluated individually based on specific factors.
These factors may include the type and severity of cancer, the plaintiff’s age at diagnosis, duration and dosage of Zantac or ranitidine use, latency period, risk factors such as smoking history, and supporting medical documentation. Each of these elements contributes to a point total, and that point total is then used to calculate the final settlement amount.
To help explain how this might work in practice, we refer to settlement “tiers”—a shorthand to give potential claimants a sense of where their case might fall on the spectrum.
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Top-tier cases (which would involve high point totals) could exceed $500,000. These would likely involve cancers strongly linked to Zantac (like bladder or stomach cancer), long-term use, younger plaintiffs, and no major competing risk factors.
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Mid-tier cases might be valued in the range of $200,000 to $300,000. These cases may involve slightly less clear causation or shorter use duration, but still carry significant medical harm and strong evidence.
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Lower-tier claims, or those with fewer points, may receive less than $100,000. This includes cases where the cancer type is not strongly linked to ranitidine or where medical documentation is limited.
It is important to understand that this is not a rigid or arbitrary process. The points system allows settlement administrators to tailor compensation to the unique circumstances of each plaintiff while maintaining consistency across the entire pool of claimants.
As always, these numbers are speculative. They are based on similar mass tort settlements involving defective drugs or toxic exposures, and assume that plaintiffs overcome remaining legal hurdles and establish liability against the brand-name drugmakers.
This Zantac lawsuit payout speculation—and, make no mistake, it is pure speculation—is based on previous mass tort cases with similar injuries. Our settlement amount prediction also assumes, as our lawyers believe, that this litigation will be very successful.
(Note: This was written some time ago. These numbers have dropped dramatically as the litigation has progressed, which we saw in the numbers in the Zantac settlement in Delaware.)
What Is the Risk of NDMA in Zantac?
People taking Zantac might have unknowingly been ingesting incredibly high levels of NDMA contamination into their system daily. Even the lower levels of NDMA found in the FDA testing are alarmingly high, and much more than the accepted safe daily limits for NDMA. Given the known potential of NDMA to cause cancer in lab animals, Zantac users may be at a significantly increased risk of various types of cancers.
NDMA ingestion from the use of Zantac may cause all types of cancer. Our Zantac lawyers talked about the five cancers that are being handled in the Zantac class action lawsuit. There are some cancers scientists may also link to NDMA in Zantac in the future.
These include breast, kidney, colorectal, prostate, and intestinal cancer. Why are these types of cancer not in the MDL? Because most Zantac lawyers do not believe that a Zantac lawsuit claiming one of these cancers will make it to trial. Because the science is not strong enough yet to support those claims.