Chantix class action alleges Pfizer sold medicine with known carcinogen

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Chantix class action lawsuit overview: 

• Who: Teresa Baptiste filed a class action lawsuit against Pfizer, Inc. 
• Why: Baptiste claims Pfizer sold adulterated, misbranded and unapproved varenicline-containing drugs under the brand name Chantix. 
• Where: The class action lawsuit was filed in Pennsylvania federal court. 

Pfizer designed, manufactured, packaged and eventually sold adulterated, misbranded and unapproved varenicline-containing drugs under the brand name Chantix, a new class action lawsuit alleges. 

Plaintiff Teresa Baptiste claims Pfizer sold varenicline-containing drugs marketed as Chantix that have been adulterated through a contamination of n-nitroso varenicline, a known human carcinogen. 

Baptiste argues Pfizer “willfully ignored” warnings about its operating standards while “knowingly and fraudulently” manufacturing, selling, labeling and distributing the allegedly adulterated varenicline-containing drugs. 

“Defendant represented and warranted to consumers that its VCDs were therapeutically equivalent to and otherwise the same as the FDA-approved brand name drug Chantix,” the Chantix class action states.

Chantix class action alleges Pfizer failed to adhere to current Good Manufacturing Practices

Pfizer failed to adhere to current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) and other practices and regulations in the company’s manufacturing and distribution of Chantix, Baptiste claims. 

“When a drug is manufactured in a non-cGMP compliant manner, that means the manufacturer cannot assure that the drugs meet the appropriate quality, purity, identity or strength,” the Chantix class action states. 

Baptiste argues that, when a company fails to manufacture its drugs in a manner that is not consistent with cGMP, it results in their products being “adulterated or misbranded or both.” 

“Defendant’s (varenicline-containing drugs) were not fit for their ordinary use and Defendant has been unjustly enriched through the sale of these knowingly adulterated and/or misbranded drugs,” the Chantix class action states. 

Baptiste claims Pfizer is guilty of negligence and unjust enrichment, among other things, and in violation of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act and multiple state consumer protection laws. 

He demands a jury trial and requests declaratory and injunctive relief along with an award of exemplary or punitive damages for herself and all class members. 

Baptiste wants to represent a nationwide class and Pennsylvania subclass of consumers who purchased varenicline-containing drugs that were manufactured, distributed or sold by Pfizer. 

In February, a class action lawsuit accusing Pfizer of failing to disclose to consumers that its drug Chantix contained a high level of a carcinogen was dismissed by a federal judge in New York.

Last September, Pfizer recalled all lots of its Chantix drug that had been distributed across the United States and Puerto Rico from between June 2019 and June 2021 over concerns it contained an unsafe level of the carcinogen nitrosamine. 

Have you purchased Pfizer’s varenicline-containing drugs sold under the brand name Chantix? Let us know in the comments! 

The plaintiff is represented by Aaron J. Freiwald of Freiwald Law, P.C., and Marlene Goldenberg and Samantha Hoefs of GoldenbergLaw, PLLC. 

The Chantix class action lawsuit is Baptiste v. Pfizer, Inc., Case No. 2:22-cv-03647, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

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