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STORY: French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi has reached a tentative agreement to settle thousands of U.S. lawsuits which link their heartburn pill Zantac to cancer.

Sanofi did not disclose financial details of the deal, nor admit any liability in the settlement over the drug, which is now discontinued.

The company said it is settling to avoid the expense and ongoing distraction of the litigation.

The agreement, which still needs to be finalized, would resolve most of the lawsuits against the firm in U.S. state courts, around 4,000 of them.

That’s with the exception of Delaware, where 20,000 suits over the heartburn pill are still pending.

Zantac was first approved in 1983 and soared to become one of the most popular drugs in the world.

Then, after the carcinogenic chemical NDMA was found in some pills, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asked manufacturers to pull the drug off the market in 2020.

Sanofi has maintained there is no evidence Zantac exposed users to harmful levels of NDMA.

The drugmaker now sells the reformulated heartburn medicine Zantac360.