“The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held that placing a product into the ‘stream of commerce’ so as to ‘purposefully target’ a market with that product can satisfy the minimum contacts requirement,” they added.
Linda Carrano and eight others filed the first lawsuit in Connecticut state court on Aug. 29, 2023; George Morrison and five others followed on March 4, 2024. The cases have since been consolidated.
Carrano and Morrison claim the original version of Zantac and ranitidine, its generic equivalent, degraded into the probable carcinogen nitrosodimethylamine, or NDMA. The complaints in both cases allege several strict liability claims, warranty claims, fraud, and negligence, including claims that temperature and humidity fluctuations during transportation affected the drug.
Pharmaceutical companies GlaxoSmithKline LLC, GlaxoSmithKline Holdings (Americas) Inc., Pfizer Inc., Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC, and Sanofi US Services Inc. filed a collective motion to dismiss the Carrano lawsuit, citing personal jurisdiction issues as purported nonresident defendants.
