District Judge Robin Rosenberg, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. (Photo: Melanie Bell/ALM)

A federal judge in Florida has appointed 26 lawyers to spearhead the lawsuits filed over heartburn medication Zantac, with nearly half of them women and at least four minority attorneys.

District Judge Robin Rosenberg, who held two days of leadership interviews with 62 attorneys via teleconference this week, emphasized the diversity of the team, which will oversee about 230 lawsuits against the makers and sellers of Zantac. The team includes four co-lead counsel, 15 members of a plaintiffs' steering committee and, in an unusual move, the judge created a "leadership development committee" that will provide "mentorship and experience" to five lawyers who applied.

"The court hopes that as the litigation moves forward, the leadership team will endeavor to build on the diversity of its team," she wrote in Friday's order. "The court also hopes that all counsel and parties will be mindful in using this MDL to provide an opportunity for a broader array of attorneys to have experiences that position them to take on more senior roles in future MDLs."

The co-leads of the Zantac MDL are Tracy Finken Magnotta of Anapol Weiss in Philadelphia; Robert Gilbert, of Kopelowitz Ostrow Ferguson Weiselberg Gilbert in Coral Gables, Florida; Michael McGlamry of Pope McGlamry in Atlanta; and Adam Pulaski of Pulaski Kherkher in Houston. The judge had previously appointed all four to some initial tasks in the litigation after the coronavirus epidemic forced her to cancel the first hearing.

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ordered the Zantac lawsuits transferred on Feb. 6 to Rosenberg, of the Southern District of Florida.

Nine women, including Roopal Luhana of Chaffin Luhana and Conlee Whiteley of Kanner & Whiteley, make up the majority of the plaintiffs' steering committee.

The lawsuits, both individual cases alleging personal injuries and class actions brought for economic damages, allege that the companies that made and sold Zantac knew its active ingredient, ranitidine, metabolized in the human body to form a carcinogen known as N-nitrosodimethylamine, or NDMA.

The lawsuits follow the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's investigation of NDMA in some blood pressure and heart failure medicines. Last month, the FDA announced it was requesting manufacturers to withdraw all prescription and over-the-counter Zantac from the market, citing concerns about potential carcinogens.

Sanofi-Aventis U.S., based in New Jersey, which recalled over-the-counter Zantac last year, is one of several defendants in the cases. Others are GlaxoSmithKline, with a U.S. unit based in Philadelphia, which first received FDA approval to sell the drug and recalled prescription Zantac last year, and Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., which has U.S. headquarters in Connecticut, and New York's Pfizer Inc. They both sold Zantac.

Plaintiffs lawyers have predicted large numbers of cases over Zantac, which has been on the market since 1983.

Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, Rosenberg appointed lawyers to interim teams focused on specific tasks, like getting an "initial census" of the cases and potential "practices and procedures." Many members of the leadership team also were in on an "April deliverables team."

She has set the initial conference, now virtually, for Monday.

In Friday's order, Rosenberg said she was impressed with the "insights" and "enthusiasm and fresh perspective" of lawyers appointed to the leadership development committee, which will be co-chaired by Melanie Muhlstock of Parker Waichman and Carmen Scott of Motley Rice. She named Ashley Keller, of Keller Lenkner, as chairman, and Fred Longer, of Levin, Sedran & Berman, as co-chairman, of the law & briefing committee, and Daniel Nigh, of Levin, Papantonio, Thomas, Mitchell, Rafferty & Proctor, as chairman of the science & experts committee.

She also named veteran trial attorneys Mikal Watts of Watts Guerra and Brent Wisner of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, as co-chairs of the bellwether & trial team.

Rosenberg praised the diversity of the leadership team but also raised concerns to the bar about the demographics of the applicant pool.

"The court was particularly impressed by the number of applicants who have started their own firms, especially the number of female founding partners who applied for roles in this litigation—while also noting that at only 31% female applicants, much work remains to be done to give judges an applicant pool that reflects the diversity of not only our society but our profession, particularly at the senior levels of leadership," she wrote. "So too, the court noted that only a small subset of the applicants identified as non-Caucasian, and that no attorneys identified as LGBTQ or disabled, underscoring the breadth of these continuing challenges."