Pfizer has quietly agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits accusing the Big Pharma giant of intentionally concealing cancer risks from customers.
The Pfizer agreements cover cases in US state courts, however the financial details have been kept under wraps, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
Tens of thousands of plaintiffs claimed Pfizer's heartburn drug Zantac was contaminated with carcinogenic impurities through improper manufacturing practices, and Pfizer knowingly withheld this information from consumers, causing many of them to develop cancer.
Pfizer was the primary manufacturer of Zantac from 1998 to 2006, when several lawsuits claim it should have known that the drug was contaminated with NDMA. Instead of the health of its customers, the Big Pharma giant was only interested in profiting off them.
MailOnline report: Animal studies have shown that NDMA can increase the risk of cancers in the esophagus, kidneys, and stomach.
Since the drug was pulled and reformulated, thousands of lawsuits began piling up in federal and state courts against Pfizer, GSK, Sanofi and Boehringer Ingelheim, who have all owned the rights to the medication.
"Pfizer has explored and will continue to explore opportunistic settlements of certain cases if appropriate, and has settled certain cases," the New York-based company said via email.
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