Class action targets ‘ineffective’ phenylephrine-based cold medicines

The class action is targeting phenylephrine-based cold medicines like Sudafed PE.

A class action has been filed claiming a pharmaceutical giant sold and marketed in New Zealand cold medicines that did not work.

Australia-based JGA Saddler this morning filed a class action against Johnson & Johnson NZ over its phenylephrine-based cold medicines tablets and syrups, claiming they have long been shown to be ineffective.

Johnson & Johnson is a United States-based pharmaceutical multinational and is among the 50 largest companies in the world. Its New Zealand subsidiary last year reported $142 million in local sales.

Requests to Johnson & Johnson’s US headquarters, and its local subsidiary’s offices in Auckland, were redirected to Kenvue. Kenvue, Johnson & Johnson’s consumer good business was spun off from its parent in 2023. Comment is being sought from Kenvue.

JGA Saddler director Rebecca Jancauskas said in a statement: “People should be able to confidently buy medicines that work as advertised and when they don’t, the company involved should be held accountable.”

Jancauskas said she was hoping to recruit New Zealand claimants, on a “no win no fee” basis, who had taken the medicines in question over the past 20 years.

Rebecca Jancauskas, Director at JGA Saddler at the Auckland High Court. Photo / Dean Purcell

“We expect this will be the largest class action in New Zealand history in terms of the number of affected individuals,” Jancauskas said.

The action covers 17 Johnson & Johnson cold and flu products, mostly branded as Codral or Sudafed PE, which JGA Saddler claimed were sold over the past two decades despite a growing body of evidence that showed its key active ingredient phenylephrine was ineffective.

In a press conference this morning outside the High Court in Auckland ,Jancauskas said three Johnson & Johnson entities were named as defendants, and the representative plantiff was a Rotorua midwife with sinus problems who had been a heavy user of phenylephrine-based medications.

“She has worked he way trough virtually the entire range of Bendryl products,” Jancauskas said

She said damages or compensation sought had not been quantified in the suit, but she was seeking to recoup all sales phenylephrine

“I would say to all New Zealanders: Come forward, register, you’re entitled to get your money back for products that don’t work,” she said.

Rebecca Jancauskas, Director at JGA Saddler at the Auckland High Court where a class action has being launched against Johnson & Johnson over their pseudoephedrine replacement not being effective in helping with congestion. 13 February 2025 NZME photograph by Dean Purcell.

The action is being bankrolled by Omni Bridgeway, a litigation funder who seeks to profit from their funding by claiming a share of any potential award or settlement.

JGA Saddler specialises in class actions and claims to have secured $1.5 billion in settlements and judgments over the past 60 years.

Omni Bridgeway New Zealand investment manager Jacob Kerkin said: “For around 20 years, New Zealanders have been sold cold and flu products to relieve their symptoms, despite studies and scientific evidence showing their key ingredient phenylephrine is ineffective when taken orally. Kiwis deserve better.”

Jon Duffy, Consumer NZ chief executive, encouraged users of the medicines to join the class action and called for a halt to their sale until efficacy could be proven.

“Large multinational companies with ample resources have no excuse for misleading consumers about the efficacy of their products … Companies must be held to account if they are found to breach the Consumer Guarantees and Fair Trading Acts.”

Phenylephrine became a widely-used substitute for pseudoephedrine when the latter, which studies found was effective relieving congestion, was made prescription-only in 2011 over concerns it could be used as a methamphetamine precursor.

The effective ban on pseudoephedrine was lifted last year, fulfilling a campaign pledge by coalition party Act, but it is sold only in pharmacies. Phenylephrine-based products remain on supermarket shelves.

The effectiveness of phenylephrine for treating congestion has long been in question with many studies finding no effect when taken orally.

But there is some evidence supporting its effectiveness when delivered via nasal spray.

In November the US Food and Drug Administration proposed removing orally-taken phenylephrine from ingredients that can be used to make products marketed as effective in relieving nasal congestion.

In December, JGA Saddler filed similar action in Australia against Johnson & Johnson, also funded by Omni Bridgeway.

Pharmaceutical companies in Canada and the United States have also faced a flurry of similar lawsuits over phenylephrine.

Matt Nippert is an Auckland-based investigations reporter covering white-collar and transnational crimes and the intersection of politics and business. He has won more than a dozen awards for his journalism – including twice being named Reporter of the Year – and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting from business newspapers and national magazines.