Key Summary
- It also faces a lawsuit in the United Kingdom over similar claims filed in 2025.
- Kenvue holds liability for Johnson's baby powder outside North America.
- The company stopped selling talc-based baby powder in the UK in 2023.
Johnson & Johnson has offered to pay an estimated $5.5 billion (£4.14bn) to resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging its baby powder and other talc products cause ovarian cancer.
The landmark deal aims to end a contentious legal battle that has that has weighed on the New Jersey-based pharmaceutical giant for a decade.
J&J said the settlement covers about 76,000 claims, representing nearly all of the remaining talc claims against the company.
Claimants allege that either they or a family member developed forms of ovarian cancer after using J&J's baby powder.
The company had previously settled most of the cases alleging that its talc contained asbestos and caused mesothelioma.
It also faces a lawsuit in the United Kingdom over similar claims filed in 2025.
The UK case alleges that J&J knew that its talc could cause cancers, but continued to sell the product, a claim denied by the company.
Kenvue holds liability for Johnson's baby powder outside North America, after it was spun off from J&J in 2022.
Plaintiffs' law firms confirmed the deal on Monday (27), saying it was a good resolution after a decade-long court battle.
The deal must be accepted by 95% of the ovarian cancer claimants in state or federal court before it becomes final.
J&J's vice president of litigation, Erik Haas, said the claims were "meritless" and that the company was willing to settle in order to get closure.
"While we are confident the company would have ultimately prevailed with further litigation, as it has in the vast majority of cases tried to date, this resolution allows the company to put this matter behind it and remain focused on its mission to develop medicines and devices that save lives," Haas said.
J&J expects to pay $3 billion in 2027, and it will make further payments in 2028. But the deal could be worth more, depending on how many people participate in the settlement.
Chris Seeger, an attorney who represents about 2,500 clients with talc claims and helped negotiate the agreement, said J&J could ultimately pay $7 billion or more.
The settlement assigns specific values to qualifying ovarian cancer claims but does not cap J&J's total payout, he said.
Courtroom wins
J&J reached the settlement after a series of wins in court, including victories in individual trials, successful efforts to disqualify plaintiffs' lawyers from the litigation, and court rulings against experts that plaintiffs had used to prove their cases in court.
Last week, it won a significant court victory when a federal judge cast doubt on individual plaintiffs' ability to prove that talc specifically caused their ovarian cancer.
J&J has long denied that its talc products caused cancer, saying that talc was safe and did not contain asbestos.
The company stopped selling talc-based baby powder in the U.S. in 2020, switching to a cornstarch product.
In 2022, J&J announced that it would stop making and selling its talc-based baby powder around the world, and it was stopped in the UK in 2023.
Talc is mined from the earth and is found in seams close to that of asbestos, which is known to cause cancer.
The litigation resumed in March 2025, after being put on hold for more than three years while J&J unsuccessfully pursued a strategy known as the "Texas two step," filing three bankruptcies through a shell-company subsidiary in an effort to settle the cases. Each bankruptcy ended in dismissal.
Before the bankruptcy attempts, J&J had a mixed record in talc trials, with a multibillion verdict in favor of 22 women who said baby powder caused their ovarian cancer. The company won some trials outright and had other verdicts reduced on appeal.
Unlike the proposed bankruptcy settlements, the latest agreement applies only to existing claims and does not address future lawsuits.
