Sanofi prevails in Zantac arbitration initiated by Boehringer Ingelheim

Sanofi announces that in an International Chamber of Commerce dispute, the tribunal dismissed BI’s indemnification claim against Sanofi and confirmed that Sanofi shall not be liable to indemnify BI for any potential losses in relation to the ongoing Zantac litigation in the U.S. This decision is final and non-appealable. “Importantly, Sanofi remains confident that the defense of the underlying U.S. Zantac litigation is very strong. There is no reliable scientific evidence that Zantac causes the alleged injuries in the cases brought against GSK, Pfizer, BI, Sanofi, and others in the U.S. litigation. The FDA and the European Medicines Agency have both evaluated the available data and found no evidence that ranitidine, the active ingredient contained in Zantac, causes cancer. This was notably confirmed in December 2022, when a U.S. federal court assigned to oversee all federal cases in the United States, ‘MDL,’ ruled that plaintiffs had no reliable scientific evidence that ranitidine can cause any of the plaintiffs’ alleged injuries. The thorough ruling substantiated Sanofi’s scientific defenses demonstrating that there is no reliable evidence of causation for even those cancer types that plaintiffs claimed had the strongest evidence. Sanofi believes that any appeal by plaintiffs of the MDL ruling has a low probability of success. Tens of thousands of claimants who were once a part of this MDL litigation chose to abandon their claims or else withdrew early from the MDL, either filing in state court or not re-filing at all. These recent events have significantly decreased the potential scope of the litigation,” Sanofi stated.