Johnson & Johnson offered up to $5.5 billion Monday to settle roughly 76,000 U.S. lawsuits alleging that its talc-based baby powder caused ovarian cancer, a proposal that would close nearly all remaining talc claims against the New Jersey-based healthcare company.
The proposed payout would end a legal fight that has trailed J&J for more than 15 years, survived three failed bankruptcy attempts and left tens of thousands of women waiting on compensation. J&J said Monday it would pay as much as $3 billion next year, with no additional funds due before 2028, and made the offer contingent on plaintiff firms representing 95 percent of the claims signing on.
The offer
The settlement covers cases consolidated in a federal court in New Jersey and related state-court suits, J&J said. The company said the deal is "conditioned on, among other things, the express participation of at least 95% of the remaining claims."
Chris Seeger, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said the settlement "ensures ... (that the) plaintiffs receive fair and meaningful compensation for their injures." Seeger added, "More than a decade of protracted litigation and three failed bankruptcies has left tens of thousands of women and their families waiting far too long for relief."
The company's line
Erik Haas, J&J's vice president of litigation, said the claims "lack scientific merit" but that the company was willing to pay to close the matter. Haas said J&J was confident it "would have ultimately prevailed with further litigation" and that the resolution "allows the Company to put this matter behind it" and remain focused on "its mission to develop medicines and devices that save lives."
J&J has won the majority of individual talc cases that have gone to trial, and earlier in July a federal court questioned whether individual plaintiffs could show that talc directly caused their ovarian cancer. The company reiterated Monday that "Studies show talc is safe, does not contain asbestos and does not cause cancer."
How it got here
The first talc suits against J&J were filed in 2009. Plaintiffs alleged that the mineral, mined from seams that often run close to asbestos, was contaminated with the known carcinogen. Beyond ovarian cancer, J&J has separately settled most claims tying its talc products to mesothelioma.
J&J stopped selling talc-based baby powder in the United States and Canada in 2020 and pulled the product worldwide in 2022, describing the move at the time as "the commercial decision to transition to an all cornstarch-based baby powder portfolio." Kenvue, the consumer-health business J&J spun off in 2022 and which owns Band-Aid, Listerine and Calpol, holds liability for the baby powder outside North America.
J&J's decision to settle after prevailing in most trials cuts against Haas's confidence that further litigation would have vindicated the company. Seeger framed the offer as overdue, and the deal still needs to clear the 95 percent participation threshold — a bar J&J's earlier bankruptcy-based plans failed to meet three times. Plaintiffs' lawyers who reject the terms could send individual cases back to jury trials.
J&J also faces a separate lawsuit in the United Kingdom, filed in 2025 on behalf of about 3,000 claimants, that the plaintiffs' law firm has valued at more than £1 billion, or roughly $1.3 billion. The U.S. deal cannot be finalized until firms representing 95 percent of the ovarian cancer claims sign on.