Products Liability
Our lawyers are taking Valsartan cancer lawsuits. Our attorneys are handling these claims in all 50 states.
Valsartan is a popular prescription drug used to treat hypertension and other heart conditions. But it was discovered that certain ingredients used to manufacture Valsartan were contaminated with NDMA. NDMA (N-nitrosodimethylamine) is known to cause cancer in humans. This prompted the FDA and European health officials to issue global safety recalls of the contaminated Valsartan products.
There is a Valsartan MDL class action pending in New Jersey where all federal court cases involving these lawsuits are housed. There are 1,072 Valsartan lawsuits pending in the class action in federal court.
If you have a potential Valsartan recall lawsuit, call a lawyer handling these lawsuits today. The deadline to file a lawsuit may have passed or may be close to passing. You can call our Valsartan lawyers at 800-553-8082.
Valsartan Class Action Update – August 2023
Only 5 new cases were transferred into the Valsartan class action MDL over the last month. Factoring in a handful of dismissals, that leaves the current number of pending cases in this MDL at 1,216. The first bellwether trial is set for early next year.
Valsartan Class Action Update – June 2023
This litigation has moved pretty slowly. But it is still moving. There are 1,221 plaintiffs in the MDL class action lawsuit in New Jersey.
Valsartan Class Action Update – January 2023
There are now 1,174 Valsartan lawsuits pending in the MDL.
Valsartan Class Action Update – December 2022
After the recent dismissal of all the Zantac lawsuits based on a lack of reliable causation evidence, the Valsartan defendants filed a motion asking the MDL Judge to reconsider his prior ruling on the admissibility of expert evidence. The defendants hoped the Valsartan cases would be dismissed on similar grounds. But in an Order issued last week, Judge Kugler rejected the motion and cleared the way for the Valsartan lawsuits to proceed. Judge Kugler explained that the Valsartan cases presented different circumstances than those at issue in the Zantac litigation and, therefore, the legal grounds for dismissal were not applicable. This means the Valsartan cases will proceed to trial without further delays.
Valsartan Class Action Update – October 2022
Over the last six months, only 120 new cases have been added to the Valsartan class action lawsuit MDL in New Jersey. This is not big litigation, and there is an upside: smaller mass torts are easier to settle. Why? Paying reasonable settlement amounts is less painful for defendants when the class action is smaller.
The total number of cases in the MDL is now 1,155. Both the Valsartan and Zantac classes involve similar claims that users developed cancer from hidden NDMA in the drugs. The reason why Valsartan has remained so small compared to Zantac is that the NDMA was a limited contamination that impacted only a few batches, whereas with Zantac the NDMA was inherent and pervasive.
Valsartan Settlement Update – August 2022
The Valsartan litigation has not taken off in the same ways its sister litigation – Zantac – has. There are just fewer lawsuits.
Since our last Valsartan update in April, just over 40 new Valsartan cancer lawsuits have been added to the MDL. About half a dozen cases have been voluntarily dismissed during the same time frame, leaving the total number of pending cases in the MDL at 1,110 as of June 15th.
Everyone expects this MDL to end in a global settlement where the defendants offer reasonable settlement amounts to get these lawsuits resolved. But the process has been painstakingly slow so far. At the last status conference with the MDL class action judge on June 29, 2022, the parties were debating the same discovery dispute that has been going on for several months.
Valsartan Settlement Update – April 2022
Overshadowed by the Zantac NDMA lawsuit, the Valsartan class action continues to add new plaintiffs. The monthly status conference in the Valsartan class action lawsuit is being held today (April 13th) before Judge Kugler. There are now 1,072 Valsartan cancer lawsuits pending in the MDL. One main point of contention in today’s conference will be an ongoing pretrial discovery dispute between the lawyers. There is also an issue over indemnification agreements between the defendants.
Valsartan Settlement Update – March 2022
The latest Valsartan lawsuit update is that the judge in the MDL class action has appointed a pair of former judges to serve as settlement counsel. Their task? These judges will accelerate global settlement negotiations. Plaintiffs’ Valsartan lawyers hope the defendants will offer reasonable settlement amounts in the hopes of resolving the pending cases which now number over 1,000.
If this effort fails, the opening round of the Valsartan bellwether trials will move forward. If the defendants were smart, they would offer reasonable individual settlement compensation now. A jury is likely to award a large compensation payout that will quickly inflate the settlement value of the Valsartan lawsuits.
Valsartan
Valsartan is an antihypertensive drug that is used for the treatment of high blood pressure, heart failure, and post-myocardial infarction. It is also prescribed to individuals with ventricle dysfunction after suffering a heart attack.
Valsartan works by effectively blocking angiotensin II – a peptide hormone that causes constriction of the blood vessels leading to higher blood pressure. This mechanism made Valsartan more effective than similar drugs before it which only worked by stopping the conversion of angiotensin I into angiotensin II (known as ACE inhibitor drugs).
Valsartan works. It has proven to be highly effective not only for high blood pressure but also for congestive heart failure. In one study, Valsartan was compared with Captopril and another ACE inhibitor after a heart attack. The study found that Valsartan was as effective as Captopril in keeping heart failure at bay.
Another study found Valsartan reduced the risk of heart failure by some 20 percent compared to a placebo group. These results led the FDA to approve a label change allowing Valsartan to be prescribed by physicians for patients with heart failure as well as hypertension.
Valsartan was originally developed by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Novartis and it was approved for use by the FDA in 1996. It was sold under the brand name Diovan before losing patent protection and being marketed as a generic valsartan. Following its release, Valsartan quickly became one of the most widely used prescription drugs in the world in the competitive blood pressure medication market.
In 2010, just 4 years after its release, global sales for the drug exceeded $6 billion. When the original patent protection for Valsartan expired in 2012 several other pharmaceutical companies began making generic versions of the drug. The largest generic manufacturers of Valsartan were Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd. and Solco Healthcare Inc.
Contamination of Valsartan with NDMA
In July 2018, one of the leading manufacturers of generic valsartan, the Chinese company Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceuticals, first discovered that the raw Valsartan it was producing was contaminated. Zhejiang Huahai is a wholesale pharmaceutical production lab that manufactures valsartan and distributes it through U.S. affiliates Prinston, Huahi, and Solco.
The company synthesizes the Valsartan compound and wholesales it to major pharmaceutical companies around the world who then use it to manufacture, package and sell generic versions of Valsartan. Zhejiang Huahai was by far the largest wholesale producer of the Valsartan compound. Sometime in late June 2018, quality control tests at Zhejiang Huahai revealed that the batches of Valsartan it was producing were dangerously contaminated with N-nitrosodimethylamine (NMDA).
The presence of NDMA was unexpected. The NDMA contamination was caused by a change in the method of synthesizing the drug that Zhejiang Huahai had adopted several years earlier.
The discovery raised serious safety concerns because of the known dangers of NDMA. NDMA is a well-known byproduct of certain chemical manufacturing processes. NDMA is classified as a carcinogen because it is known to cause cancer in humans. Numerous animal studies have established that exposure or ingestion of even small amounts of NDMA can cause cancer in the liver, gastrointestinal system, and kidneys.
At one time NDMA was used in the manufacture of rocket fuel, but this use was stopped because of concerns about environmental contamination. The EPA classifies NDMA as a probable human carcinogen. NDMA is identified as a priority toxic pollutant in federal regulations.
After discovering the NDMA contamination, Zhejiang Huahai immediately alerted pharmaceutical companies and safety officials. This prompted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European health officials to immediately recall all potentially affected versions of Valsartan.
Since then, NDMA contamination has been found in the valsartan components produced by 2 other pharmaceutical wholesalers: Zhejiang Tianyu Pharmaceuticals of Taizhou, China; and Hetero Labs Ltd. in India. Testing on the components from these labs showed lower levels of NDMA compared to the Zhejiang Huahai product.
The best way to underscore how serious the problem with these tainted drugs is the bipartisan support for further investigation in Congress. These people cannot agree on the color of the sky. But they agree that they want more information on what happened with Valsartan.
- This understanding of the risks of NDMA with Valsartan has led many to the conclusion that Zantac causes cancer for all of the same reasons that it does with Valsartan.
- Another drug that may cause cancer: Belviq
Potential Injuries from Contaminated Valsartan
NDMA is not only a particularly dangerous carcinogen, but it can also be a poison at high levels. There have been several reported cases in which people died from internal bleeding and severe liver damage after ingesting high doses of NDMA on just one occasion. In animal testing, ingesting high to moderate levels of NDMA caused major liver damage after just a few days and cancer after just several weeks. Almost all of the animals
An investigation into the cause of the NDMA contamination has shown that it was most likely caused by a change in the manufacturing process that Zhejiang Huahai started several years ago.
So Valsartan contaminated with NDMA was on the market for several years before discovery and recall.
This is very troubling because Valsartan is used as a “maintenance” drug taken daily on a long-term basis. This means that some people may have been ingesting NDMA once or twice a day for several years. This sort of continuous long-term use is exactly the type of exposure that can cause cancer. NDMA exposure is linked to specific Valsartan-related cancers such as:
- Liver Cancer
- Gastric Cancer
- Colorectal Cancer
- Kidney Cancer
Are these the only cancers linked to NDMA exposure? No. It seems as though NDMA can cause many different cancers. There is also talk of pancreatic cancer, non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, leukemia, and multiple myeloma. Certainly, the MDL class action Zantac lawsuit has taken an even deeper dive into NDMA and found bladder cancer is probably the cancer that can be best linked to this compound. (Interesting, Zantac is not as well linked to kidney cancer which we list above.)
In 2022, the Zantac lawsuits have linked, in addition to bladder cancer, liver, stomach, esophageal, pancreatic, and esophageal cancer have been linked to NDMA in the Zantac litigation.
Which cancers can be linked to NDMA – which is a big part of the Zantac lawsuits as well – is a subject of intense study and the science is developing.
One thing is safe to say. Given the widespread use of Valsartan, the number of people who may develop cancer from exposure to NDMA is very large.
What Valsartan Patients Need to Know
If you have been taking Valsartan for the treatment of hypertension or other conditions, you should immediately consult with your prescribing doctor about the potential dangers to your health. You should also find out what generic version of Valsartan you were getting from your pharmacy. Not all generic versions of Valsartan were contaminated with NDMA, although the list continues to grow as the investigation proceeds. In the U.S. the safety recall only applied to the Valsartan manufactured by Solco Healthcare, Teva Pharmaceutical, and Major Pharmaceuticals.
How Much Money Can You Expect from a Valsartan Settlement?
Understandably, victims want to know what the possible settlement value of the Valsartan case might be. It is a good question. The suffering victims may endure is extreme and monetary compensation is all we have to reach toward justice.
Our law firm has been willing to go out on a limb to predict the values of mass tort cases. The Valsartan lawsuits are difficult to gauge potential settlement amounts because our Valsartan lawyers still do not know which types of cancer will be linked to Valsartan in the eyes of the federal court judge who will decide which claims are strong enough to go to the jury after what is called a Daubert hearing.
But let’s speculate. Valsartan lawsuit payouts will almost certainly be ranked into settlement tiers with a points system that considers the severity of the plaintiff’s injuries, the amount of Valsartan usage, age, and type of cancer. Cases in the top tier could see settlement amounts of more than $400,000. Middle-tier cases could range from $200,000 to $300,000. Bottom-tier cases may have settlement payouts of less than $100,000. What will the average individual Valsartan settlement be? Our prediction is between $150,000 and $200,000.
These settlement amount predictions are premised on the idea of a global settlement. A successful verdict in a Valsartan lawsuit is likely to be in the millions.
To get some idea of the trial value of cancer cases, you can find sample settlements and verdicts here that are based on the type of cancer the person has. Is this kind of data helpful to victims? Sure. But, ultimately, we do not know what the possible settlement amounts of a Valsartan lawsuit might be.
Certainly, it is easier for the defendants to offer reasonable Valsartan settlement amounts than for Zantac because the stakes are lower. There is probably 25 times the number of Zantac lawsuits to Valsartan claims.
One key to settlement value is to have lawyers who are fighting for every possible penny and are determined to maximize the value of your case for all that you have had to endure either as a victim or surviving family member.
2022 Valsartan Lawsuit Update
Right now, the Valsartan class action lawsuit is in the discovery phase with lawyers on both sides fighting over the process of discovering evidence. There has also been a focused discovery in 28 Valsartan lawsuits.
Three of these lawsuits will be selected by the lawyers and the judge to be the bellwether trials that will go first. The purpose of the trials of these Valsartan suits is to help the parties determine the appropriate settlement payout amounts in this class action litigation.
The first Valsartan lawsuit should be towards the end of 2022.
When Might Victims See a Valsartan Lawsuit Settlement Check?
Our Valsartan lawyers cannot predict if and when the Valsartan lawsuits will settle. But, while anything is possible, it is unlikely the victims will see a settlement check even under the best of scenarios before 2023. It often takes at least a year to unwind a mass tort settlement. And a Valsartan lawsuit payout is not likely until just before or after the bellwether trials.
Contact Miller & Zois About Valsartan Cancer Lawsuit
If you are one of the thousands of people that have been taking Valsartan to treat high blood pressure or other conditions, you may have been injured by the NDMA contamination. Thousands of lawsuits will likely be filed over the Valsartan contamination.
What kinds of Valsartan cases are we reviewing? First, the contamination likely began in 2015 so we are looking for at least a year of use before receiving a cancer diagnosis. You also have to keep in mind that the statute of limitations has likely passed for some Valsartan lawsuits. So you want to contact a lawyer as quickly as you can to see if your deadline to sue has already passed.
The cancer cases we are looking for are liver, stomach, or colorectal cancer. The early evidence is that these cancers are associated with Valsartan. But our lawyers would also look at bladder, stomach, esophageal, pancreatic, and esophageal cancer based on what we have learned on the Zantac lawsuits.
If you think you may have been harmed by Valsartan contact the attorneys at Miller & Zois today. We can help investigate your case and determine whether you might have a valid claim. Call us at 800-553-8082 today or get a free online consultation.