Zantac lawsuit

The docket record

Full docket title: IN RE: Zantac (Ranitidine) Products Liability Litigation. Programmatic record page: MDL 2924.

Zantac lawsuit update — October 2026

What changed this month: in the October 1, 2026 report, MDL 2924 held at 847 pending actions, unchanged from the previous report. Figures come from the Judicial Panel's own monthly report and are restated here each month.

As of the JPML's report dated September 1, 2026, 847 actions remain pending in MDL 2924 before Judge Robin L. Rosenberg in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, down from 15,018 actions filed in the MDL since it was created; the pending count has been roughly flat through 2026. On December 6, 2022, Judge Rosenberg excluded plaintiffs' general-causation expert testimony under Daubert and dismissed the pending federal cases, finding the available testing did not reliably show ranitidine caused cancer at real-world exposure levels; plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and this page could not independently confirm the appeal's current status or outcome from an accessible source (see research_notes). The federal dismissal did not affect cases filed in state courts, where tens of thousands of claims continued, concentrated in Delaware, Illinois, California and Connecticut. Delaware, the largest of those venues, has since closed: the Delaware Supreme Court reversed the Superior Court's expert-admissibility standard on July 10, 2025, the Superior Court excluded the plaintiffs' general-causation experts on December 1, 2025, and on April 14, 2026 it granted summary judgment for the defendants as to every complaint filed on or before that date. Litigation continues in a smaller number of state courts, including Illinois, which applies the Frye standard rather than a Daubert-style analysis. On October 9, 2024, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced it would pay $2.2 billion to resolve about 80,000 state-court claims, which it said represented roughly 93% of its remaining U.S. Zantac cases, plus $70 million to settle a related whistleblower (qui tam) suit brought by Valisure; GSK said it was not admitting liability and maintains there is no reliable evidence ranitidine increases cancer risk. Pfizer and Sanofi separately settled their own Zantac claims earlier, for a reported combined total in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Boehringer Ingelheim has not announced a comparable broad settlement and continued to try cases in Illinois state court into 2025. Tens of thousands of Delaware state-court cases were proceeding under a Delaware-specific expert-admissibility standard that GSK challenged; the Delaware Supreme Court agreed to hear that question on an interlocutory appeal (granted August 27, 2024) and issued a ruling on July 10, 2025, but this page could not independently confirm the substance of that ruling's holding from an accessible source (see research_notes). New Zantac cancer lawsuits have continued to be filed in some state courts as recently as mid-2025.

Sources: Pending MDL Dockets By Actions Pending, Report Date 9/1/2026 · MDL Statistics Report - Docket Summary Listing, Report Da… · MDL Judge Dismisses Zantac Litigation, After Excluding Ex… · Delaware Zantac Lawsuits Continue To Be Filed As GlaxoSmi…; full list at the end of this page.

What the lawsuits are about

Zantac was a brand-name version of ranitidine, an over-the-counter and prescription heartburn and acid-reflux medication first approved in the 1980s and, at one time, one of the best-selling drugs in the world. In 2019, the online pharmacy Valisure petitioned the FDA after finding that ranitidine could break down into N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), a chemical classified as a probable human carcinogen. Plaintiffs allege that ranitidine's NDMA levels can increase with heat, time, and storage, and that manufacturers knew or should have known of the risk and failed to warn consumers. Lawsuits allege a range of cancers, most commonly bladder, stomach, esophageal, liver, and pancreatic cancer. GSK and other manufacturers dispute that ranitidine causes cancer at real-world exposure levels and point to their own testing and to the federal court's ruling excluding plaintiffs' causation experts.

The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation centralized federal Zantac product-liability cases into MDL No. 2924, In Re: Zantac (Ranitidine) Products Liability Litigation, transferring them to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida before Judge Robin L. Rosenberg on February 6, 2020, shortly after the FDA requested that all ranitidine products be pulled from the U.S. market on April 1, 2020. Tens of thousands of federal cases were filed into or transferred to the MDL, alongside a larger number of parallel cases filed directly in state courts (including Delaware, Illinois, California, and Connecticut) that were not bound by the federal court's rulings.

The federal MDL effectively ended for most plaintiffs on December 6, 2022, when Judge Rosenberg excluded plaintiffs' general-causation expert testimony as scientifically unreliable and dismissed the cases before her; plaintiffs appealed. Litigation continued in state courts, where different evidentiary rules sometimes let cases proceed further, including to trial: state-court juries in Illinois and California heard Zantac cancer cases in 2024 and 2025 with mixed results, including at least one defense verdict for GSK and one hung jury. GSK, the defendant with the most exposure, announced on October 9, 2024 that it would pay $2.2 billion to resolve about 80,000 of its remaining state-court claims without admitting liability; Pfizer and Sanofi had already settled their own claims separately for a reported combined total in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Boehringer Ingelheim had not announced a comparable settlement as of mid-2025 and continued to try cases. As of September 2026, 847 actions remain pending in the federal MDL, and it is unclear from available sources how many claims remain outstanding in state courts against defendants that have not settled.

Injuries named in the filings

• Bladder cancer
• Stomach (gastric) cancer
• Esophageal cancer
• Liver cancer
• Pancreatic cancer
• Kidney cancer
• Intestinal cancer
• Prostate cancer
• Other cancers named in individual complaints, as alleged by plaintiffs

Principal defendants: GlaxoSmithKline (GSK); Boehringer Ingelheim; Sanofi; Pfizer; Generic and store-brand ranitidine manufacturers and retailers named in individual complaints.

Sources: Pending MDL Dockets By Actions Pending, Report Date 9/1/2026 · MDL Statistics Report - Docket Summary Listing, Report Da… · MDL Judge Dismisses Zantac Litigation, After Excluding Ex… · Delaware Zantac Lawsuits Continue To Be Filed As GlaxoSmi…; full list at the end of this page.

Who the filings say qualifies

Eligibility criteria below reflect how plaintiff-side legal sources describe the Zantac litigation's injury allegations and settlement structure; this page could not independently retrieve the operative master complaint, the Delaware plaintiff fact sheet, or GSK's settlement claims criteria from the court docket. Federal claims are foreclosed by the December 2022 dismissal, and GSK's October 2024 settlement is intended to resolve claims already filed in state court before that date, not to create a new public claims fund. Anyone considering a new claim should verify current eligibility with an attorney or the relevant settlement administrator, not this page.

• Diagnosis of a cancer alleged in the litigation, most commonly bladder, stomach, esophageal, liver, or pancreatic cancer, as summarized by plaintiff-side sources
• Documented regular use of Zantac (brand) or generic ranitidine before diagnosis, as summarized by plaintiff-side sources
• Claim not already resolved through GSK's October 2024 state-court settlement or an earlier individual settlement with GSK, Pfizer, Sanofi, or Boehringer Ingelheim
• Filing within the applicable state statute of limitations, which varies by state and by diagnosis date; new federal MDL filings are foreclosed by the December 2022 dismissal

Source: AboutLawsuits.com: Zantac (as summarized by plaintiff-side sources; not a court document).

These are the criteria in the public record, not a promise about any individual case. A law firm evaluates each case on its own facts, and limitations periods vary by state.

Key dates

1. February 6, 2020The JPML centralizes federal Zantac ranitidine product-liability cases into MDL 2924 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida before Judge Robin L. Rosenberg. source
2. December 6, 2022Judge Rosenberg excludes plaintiffs' general-causation expert testimony under Daubert and dismisses the federal cases pending in MDL 2924 for lack of admissible evidence that ranitidine causes cancer. source
3. May 2, 2024The first Zantac cancer trial after the federal dismissal begins in Cook County Circuit Court, Illinois, against GSK and Boehringer Ingelheim. source
4. August 27, 2024The Delaware Supreme Court grants GSK's petition for an interlocutory appeal on the expert-admissibility standard used in Delaware Superior Court, a question the appeal order describes as potentially dispositive for nearly 75,000 Delaware Zantac lawsuits. source
5. October 9, 2024GSK announces it will pay $2.2 billion to resolve about 80,000 Zantac claims pending in state courts nationwide (about 93% of its remaining U.S. cases), plus $70 million to settle a related Valisure whistleblower suit, without admitting liability. source
6. February 5, 2025A retrial over Zantac-related prostate cancer claims against Boehringer Ingelheim proceeds in Cook County, Illinois state court, illustrating that state-court litigation against non-settling defendants continued after GSK's settlement. source
7. July 10, 2025The Delaware Supreme Court, en banc, decides In re Zantac (Ranitidine) Litigation, No. 255, 2024, and REVERSES: the proponent of an expert opinion must establish sufficiency and reliability by a preponderance of the evidence, and the Superior Court "abdicated its gatekeeping role by passing crucial questions of sufficiency and reliability to the jury." source
8. December 1, 2025On remand, the Delaware Superior Court excludes the plaintiffs' general-causation expert opinions under the standard the Supreme Court set out. source
9. April 14, 2026Judge Francis J. Jones, Jr. grants summary judgment for the defendants "as to all complaints filed on or before December 1, 2025," ending the Delaware Zantac cases, and declines to defer pending the Eleventh Circuit. The order does not certify a case count; it quotes the plaintiffs' own filings, which put the number at "over 80,000" in one brief and "75,000" in another. source
10. September 1, 2026The JPML reports 847 actions pending in MDL 2924 before Judge Rosenberg, out of 15,018 actions filed in the MDL since 2020. source

Questions people ask

Sources: Pending MDL Dockets By Actions Pending, Report Date 9/1/2026 · MDL Statistics Report - Docket Summary Listing, Report Da… · MDL Judge Dismisses Zantac Litigation, After Excluding Ex… · Delaware Zantac Lawsuits Continue To Be Filed As GlaxoSmi…; full list at the end of this page.

Track this docket

We re-read the JPML report on the first business day of each month. Get an email when this record changes: case count, status, or a settlement development.

Sources

1. U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, “Pending MDL Dockets by Actions Pending,” monthly reports January 2, 2024 to October 1, 2026. Transferee court: Southern District of Florida, Robin L. Rosenberg.
2. Pending MDL Dockets By Actions Pending, Report Date 9/1/2026, U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. Accessed September 3, 2026.
3. MDL Statistics Report - Docket Summary Listing, Report Date 9/1/2026, U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. Accessed September 3, 2026.
4. MDL Judge Dismisses Zantac Litigation, After Excluding Expert Testimony on Cancer Risk, AboutLawsuits.com. Accessed September 3, 2026.
5. Delaware Zantac Lawsuits Continue To Be Filed As GlaxoSmithKline Appeals to State Supreme Court, AboutLawsuits.com. Accessed September 3, 2026.
6. GSK To Pay $2.2 Billion To Settle Zantac Cancer Lawsuits Brought by 80,000 Consumers, AboutLawsuits.com. Accessed September 3, 2026.
7. GSK Continues To Settle Zantac Lawsuits Before Trial, As Company Faces Nearly 100,000 Claims Nationwide, AboutLawsuits.com. Accessed September 3, 2026.
8. Jury Hears Zantac Cancer Evidence in Illinois Trial Against Boehringer Ingelheim, AboutLawsuits.com. Accessed September 3, 2026.
9. Zantac Cancer Lawsuits Continue To Be Filed More Than 5 Years After Recall, AboutLawsuits.com. Accessed September 3, 2026.
10. Zantac (topic overview), AboutLawsuits.com. Accessed September 3, 2026.
11. In re Zantac (Ranitidine) Litigation, No. 255, 2024 (decided July 10, 2025), Supreme Court of Delaware, via CourtListener (Free Law Project). Accessed September 3, 2026.
12. Zantac (drug and litigation overview), Drugwatch (plaintiff-side legal marketing site). Accessed September 3, 2026.
13. In re Zantac (Ranitidine) Litigation, No. 255, 2024 — Delaware Supreme Court opinion (July 10, 2025), Delaware State Courts. Accessed September 8, 2026.
14. In re Zantac (Ranitidine) Litigation, C.A. No. N22C-09-101 ZAN — Delaware Superior Court opinion and order granting summary judgment (April 14, 2026), Delaware State Courts. Accessed September 8, 2026.

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