Nov 22 (Reuters) - A trial ended with a hung jury on

Thursday in a California man's lawsuit alleging Boehringer

Ingelheim's discontinued heartburn drug Zantac gave him bladder

cancer.

The jury in California state court was evenly divided on

whether to hold Boehringer Ingelheim liable, according to

lawyers for plaintiff John Russell. It was the third time that a

Zantac trial against the privately held German drugmaker ended

with a deadlocked jury.

Russell's lawyers, Brent Wisner and Jennifer Moore, said in

a joint statement that they "stand ready to retry this case

immediately."

"Boehringer dodged a bullet today - that won't happen

again," they said.

Boehringer Ingelheim in a statement said it was

"unfortunate" that the jury had not reached a verdict.

"However, once again, plaintiffs have failed to convince

another jury of the merits of their baseless claims regarding

Zantac," it said.

Russell accused the company, which sold Zantac from 2006 to

2017 of failing to warn that the drug's active ingredient

ranitidine could degrade into a cancer-causing substance called

NDMA.

First approved by U.S. regulators in 1983, Zantac became the

world's best-selling medicine in 1988 and one of the first to

top $1 billion in annual sales. The drug was sold at different

times by Boehringer Ingelheim, GSK, Pfizer ( PFE ) and

Sanofi.

Lawsuits against the companies began piling up in both state

and federal courts after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration

asked manufacturers in 2020 to pull Zantac off the market. The

agency cited concerns that ranitidine could degrade into NDMA, a

carcinogen, over time or when exposed to heat.

GSK last month agreed to settle about 80,000 Zantac

lawsuits, representing most of the litigation against it, for

$2.2 billion. Pfizer ( PFE ) has also agreed to settle most of the

outstanding cases against it, according to its most recent

financial statement. Sanofi in April announced that it was

settling about 4,000 cases.

Plaintiffs have not won any of the five trials that have

been held so far over Zantac. In addition to the two previous

deadlocks in cases against Boehringer Ingelheim, two trials have

ended in victories for the defense - one for GSK and Boehringer

Ingelheim, and one for GSK alone.

A majority of the remaining state court cases are in

Delaware, where a judge in June allowed plaintiffs to present

crucial expert testimony that Zantac caused cancer. The drug

companies are appealing the judge's ruling to the Delaware

Supreme Court, arguing that the expert testimony was not backed

by sound science.

The companies had successfully used that argument to get

about 50,000 lawsuits thrown out of Florida federal court in

2022. About 14,000 of those cases are being appealed.

A drug currently sold under the name Zantac 360 uses a

different active ingredient and contains no ranitidine.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York)