(The Center Square) – Ohio and Indiana are suing the makers of a popular heartburn medication, saying the drug company concealed cancer risks and cost investors billions.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a motion to have the Ohio Employees Retirement System join the Indiana Public Retirement System as co-lead plaintiffs in the case involving Zantac and it’s reported link to cancer.
Yost says the pharmaceutical company GSK, headquartered in London, knew the links but kept it quiet costing the state’s retirement system $14.6 million.
“The company knew about its product’s link to cancer but kept it a secret for decades,” Yost said. “The reckless cover-up had tragic health consequences for patients and caused serious financial harm for investors.”
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, wants damages for investors’ losses. CEO Emma Walmsley, along with two other company executives, are also named defendants.
GlaxoSmithKline’s two major American operating points are in University City, Pa., and Durham, N.C.
The lawsuit says GSK lied to investors about Zantac’s safety. Yost said the drug was prescribed more than 15 million times a year since introduced in the United States in 1983. It was removed from the market in 2020.
According to the lawsuit, GSK concealed an internal study in 1982 that showed Zantac can break down into high levels of a cancer-causing compound. An independent lab showed the danger to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the public in 2019, prompting thousands of lawsuits.
Yost said GSK agreed to pay up to $2.2 billion to 80,000 plaintiffs in October 2024.
