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American pharma giant Johnson & Johnson has announced a $5.5 billion settlement intended to resolve the majority of remaining lawsuits alleging that its talc products caused ovarian cancer.
In its statement, the company said that this resolution would allow it to put the longstanding litigation behind it and “remain focused on its mission to develop medicines and devices that save lives”.
The legal action against Johnson & Johnson goes back 15 years, when the first lawsuits over talc powder products were filed against the company by women claiming that their use of such products had resulted in ovarian cancer.
Since then, cases have gone both ways, with juries finding in favour of plaintiffs in some instances, and in favour of the pharmaceutical giant in others.
The company announced today that it had reached an agreement for a “comprehensive resolution” of the remaining 76,000 ovarian talc claims, conditioned on the participation of “at least 95% of the remaining claims”.
“The proposed resolution follows a favorable ruling by the MDL [Multi-District Litigation] court, and acknowledgment by plaintiffs’ counsel, regarding plaintiffs’ inability to prove that the Company’s talc products caused any particular claimant’s ovarian cancer,” the company said.
Johnson & Johnson’s position has remained that the talc claims are based on “junk science” that it says has long been rejected by scientific organisations, regulatory agencies and independent experts in the US.
Despite this, it stopped selling talc-based baby powder in the US and Canada in 2020, and globally in 2023.
Commenting on the development, Worldwide Vice President of Litigation at Johnson & Johnson Erik Haas said that while his company was “confident” that it would have “ultimately prevailed with further litigation”, its opting for a settlement allowed it to focus on the future.
“After decades of litigation and full vetting of the science in an extensive hearing, plaintiffs effectively conceded their inability to prove specific causation by withdrawing their experts on the topic in two bellwether cases,” Haas said.
“In a watershed moment, the Court thereafter ordered plaintiffs to show why the remaining claims should not be dismissed, confirming what we have maintained for years: that these claims lack scientific merit and were sustained only by unreliable expert opinions that could not survive rigorous judicial review.
“The Court’s order placed plaintiffs in an untenable position of having to present specific causation evidence to maintain their claims that does not exist,” he said.
Meanwhile, one of the lead firms representing plaintiffs in the federal MDL, Seeger Weiss LLP, said that the agreement was reached with the support and endorsement of the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee and the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee.
Lead Negotiation Council Christopher Seeger said that “more than a decade of protracted litigation and three failed bankruptcies has left tens of thousands of women and their families waiting far too long for relief”.
“Tragically, many did not live to see this day,” he said.
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