TRENTON, N.J. (Legal Newsline) – Pfizer is asking a federal judge in New Jersey to throw out a class action lawsuit brought after the recall of Chantix, which helped users quit smoking cigarettes.
The company says in a July 5 motion to dismiss that the issues have already been dismissed with prejudice in another case that was filed in New York and dealt with New Jersey law. Pfizer recalled Chantix in 2021 after it was determined to contain nitrosamine, a probable human carcinogen.
But the class actions that followed do not allege users were stricken with cancer. Monmouth County alleges instead that it incurred health care costs when Chantix was prescribed to patients.
Pfizer’s motion argues the FDA’s guidance on nitrosamine proves a 110-pound woman who consumed the FDA’s threshold for dangerous amounts of N-nitroso-varenicline would have a 1 in 100,000 change of developing cancer.
“In contrast, smoking cause one in three cancer deaths,” the motion says.
Five months ago, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote threw out a class action brought by Chantix users and their lawyers at Bursor & Fisher. The plaintiffs complained they were forced to spend money on co-pays for Chantix and were thus financially harmed, though not physically.
The plaintiffs couldn’t prove the Chantix they purchased was any different from the drug approved by the FDA and failed to show Pfizer had no knowledge the drug was contaminated at the time they bought it.
David Magagna of Levin Sedran & Berman in Philadelphia is representing Monmouth County, along with two colleagues at the firm and New Jersey lawyer Michael Fitzgerald.
“Nowhere does the complaint allege (nor could it) that Plaintiff is in a special or fiduciary relationship with Pfizer,” the motion to dismiss says.
“Nor does the complaint plausibly allege that Pfizer had knowledge that Chantix was contaminated, or that Pfizer made a prior or partial statement ‘that was rendered false or misleading by any omission.’
“Plaintiff suggests that ‘Chantix’s product and active ingredient labels are misleading because they do not disclose the presence of a nitrosamine contaminant. But that omission does not render either the brand name ‘Chantix’ or the active ingredient label ‘varenicline’ false or misleading – those terms correctly identify the product…”