Landmark federal opioid trial opens in Ohio
The first federal trial that could determine who should pay for the damages caused by the opioid epidemic in the United States opened in Ohio on Wednesday, with one estimate pegging the cost to the country’s economy at $631 billion from 2015 to 2018.
Jury selection in the US District Court in Cleveland has started after three major drug distribution companies alleged to have played a part in the opioid crisis and two counties failed to settle the case for $18 billion.
The distributors — McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health — offered to pay $18 billion over 18 years to settle cases filed by Ohio’s Cuyahoga and Summit counties, which include the cities of Cleveland and Akron.
Henry Schein, a small distributor, Walgreens and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries are also named as defendants in the Cleveland case. A settlement could still be reached, but both sides are now going to trial.
The counties seek to recover costs incurred during the opioid epidemic, including medical care, emergency services and foster care for children born to addicted parents.
US District Court Judge Dan Polster had urged the counties to settle so money could be disbursed to victims.
Opening statements from opposing attorneys are expected to begin on Oct 21. The trial is expected to last two months. Many view the trial as a bellwether case that could establish the outline for the out-of-court resolution of about 2,500 pending cases against drug manufacturers and distributors.
400,000 deaths since 1999
About 400,000 people have died from overdoses of legal and illegal opioids in the US since 1999, federal statistics show. Oxycodone, sold widely under the brand name OxyContin, is a prescription opioid painkiller.
On Wednesday, the Society of Actuaries, a professional organization based near Chicago, said the $631 billion hit to the US economy included the cost of healthcare, lost wages due to premature death, the cost of criminal justice activities, lost job productivity as well as family assistance and education.
The two counties charge that the companies named as defendants controlled about 95 percent of the US drug-distribution market in 2018 and failed to establish safeguards to halt suspicious orders as addiction and deaths from opioids rose.
The companies argue that they distributed a legal product, followed federal regulations and monitored suspicious orders, pretrial filings show.
Earlier this month, Johnson & Johnson, the world’s biggest maker of healthcare products, agreed to a $20.4 million settlement to avoid a trial that would have decided its role in the opioid crisis in the two Ohio counties.
Johnson & Johnson is the fourth drugmaker to agree to such a deal to avoid going to trial where a jury of 12 citizens would have determined how much the company paid in damages. Defendants routinely appeal such awards, and the award is sometimes reduced by a higher court.
Earlier, Mallinckrodt agreed to a $30 million deal to settle its case; Endo International agreed to pay $10 million; Allergan agreed to pay $5 million.
In August, Johnson & Johnson lost at trial in Oklahoma, where a judge ordered it to pay $572 million for its part in the state’s opioid crisis. The ruling included $107.6 million for addiction treatment, but the judge later corrected himself and said he intended to order a penalty of $107,600. As a result, the judgment could be reduced.
OxyContin was first synthesized in 1916, but wasn’t available in the US until 1939. Its time-released formulation of oxycodone provides up to 12 hours of relief to patients experiencing chronic pain from surgery, cancer, injury or severe arthritis.
Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, and the company’s owners, the Sackler family, last month reached a tentative agreement with 23 states and thousands of local governments to settle lawsuits.