Johnson & Johnson settling talc baby powder lawsuits for $5.5 billion

Johnson & Johnson announced an statement Monday to wage $5.5 cardinal to resoluteness tens of thousands of lawsuits claiming its talc-based babe pulverization and different talc products caused ovarian cancer, a colony the institution said would bring finality to 15 years of litigation.

The colony encompasses astir 76,000 claims, spanning national tribunal proceedings successful New Jersey arsenic good arsenic related authorities tribunal cases, and accounts for virtually each of the talc lawsuits inactive pending against the company, J&J said. It requires acceptance by astatine slightest 95% of ovarian crab claimants earlier it tin instrumentality effect. J&J expects to marque a archetypal outgo of nary much than $3 cardinal successful 2027, with further payments owed nary earlier than 2028, the institution said.

The full payout could transcend $5.5 billion. Chris Seeger, an lawyer representing astir 2,500 claimants who helped negociate the deal, said J&J could extremity up paying $7 cardinal oregon more, according to CNBC. The colony assigns values to qualifying claims but does not headdress J&J's full liability. The caller operation is designed to present outgo to each claimants wrong 18 months, a acold faster timeline than the decade-plus payout schedules envisioned nether the earlier bankruptcy plans, according to NBC News.

In opposition to the earlier bankruptcy proposals, the caller woody is constricted to existent claimants and leaves immoderate aboriginal lawsuits extracurricular its scope.

J&J's worldwide vice president of litigation, Erik Haas, said the institution inactive maintains the claims deficiency merit. "While we are assured the institution would person yet prevailed with further litigation, arsenic it has successful the immense bulk of cases tried to date, this solution allows the institution to enactment this substance down it and stay focused connected its ngo to make medicines and devices that prevention lives," Haas said successful a statement.

The colony follows a drawstring of courtroom victories for J&J. On July 22, 2026, a national justice ordered plaintiffs to amusement wherefore their remaining talc claims should not beryllium dismissed aft plaintiffs withdrew their circumstantial causation experts successful 2 bellwether cases, the institution said. J&J has agelong maintained that its talc products were harmless and did not incorporate asbestos.

The cases returned to tribunal successful March 2025 pursuing a halt of much than 3 years during which J&J pursued a strategy of filing 3 successive bankruptcies done a subsidiary — an attack that courts rejected each time, resulting successful dismissal, according to NBC News. J&J pulled its talc-based babe pulverization from U.S. shelves successful 2020 and yet extended that withdrawal worldwide successful 2023, the institution said.

J&J had antecedently reported second-quarter income of $25.31 billion, up 6.6% from a twelvemonth earlier, driven by beardown request successful its pharmaceutical segment. The institution acceptable a full-year gross guidance midpoint of $101.1 cardinal for 2026.