Opioid firms to pay $260M in Ohio cases
Four major drug companies have settled with two Ohio counties to avoid going to trial over the corporations’ roles in the opioid crisis.
McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc., AmerisourceBergen Corp. and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. reached a last-minute $260 million settlement with Cuyahoga and Summit counties Monday morning, just before a federal jury trial was set to begin in Cleveland.
“The proposed settlement will make significant progress to abate the epidemic by providing resources for and applying funds directly to necessary opioid-recovery programs,” the lead plaintiff lawyers said in a joint news release to the Wall Street Journal.
McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen will pay $215 million, while Teva will lay out $20 million in cash over the next two years and donate $25 million in addictiontreatment drugs, according to the Journal. Another defendant, the Melville, L.I.-based Henry Schein Medical, said Monday it also settled with the two counties for $1.25 million.
The drug distributor Walgreens Boots Alliance failed to reach a settlement, but that trial has been postponed, the presiding judge ruled Monday.
Thousands of other lawsuits claiming the distributors failed to stop shipment of suspicious orders of controlled substances, improperly marketed opioids and undersold the risks of the addictive drugs are still pending. Groups including local municipalities, hospitals and Native American tribes have all brought federal lawsuits against the drug companies.
The companies have denied any wrongdoing, saying their drugs were approved under strict scrutiny by the Food and Drug Administration and that warning labels on the pill bottles disclose the risks.
Last month, Purdue Pharma struck a tentative $12 billion settlement with thousands of city and county leaders, as well as more than 20 state attorneys general, that would involve the Sackler family, which founded and owns Purdue Pharma, paying $3 billion out of their own pockets and relinquishing control of the company.