Justice Department to go after opioid manufacturers

City, county may join drug lawsuits

The Department of Justice will weigh in on the side of the growing number of states and other governments that are suing the makers and distributors of prescription opioids, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Tuesday.

“The department will file a statement of interest in a lawsuit against a number of opioid manufacturers and distributors” that are accused of deceptive marketing of painkillers, Mr. Sessions said. “We will use criminal penalties. We will use civil penalties.”

In an as-yet-unreleased court filing, the department will layout the opioid-related costs the federal government has borne through both health programs and law enforcement and will ask that the pharmaceutical companies make some reimbursement.

Mr. Sessions said that Medicare paid out $4 billion for opioid prescriptions in 2016 alone, and that doesn’t begin to approach the vast public funds expended contending with costs related to addictions to illicit drugs, many spurred by prescriptions.

“Over the next three years, this crisis will cost another half trillion dollars,” he predicted. “We will go to court to ensure that the American people receive the compensation that they deserve.”

Mr. Sessions spoke at a news conference at the Robert F. Kennedy Main Justice Building in Washington, D.C., flanked by state attorneys general, including Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro.

“I believe that these opioid painkillers have been the jet fuel to this crisis,” Mr. Shapiro said. In an average day, 15 Pennsylvanians die of drug overdoses, he said.

“As we’re doing this work, we have to focus on the supply chain,” he continued. “The supply chain runs directly to these opioid manufacturers, runs directly to these opioid distributors.”

Mr. Shapiro is a leader of a group of 41 state prosecutors who are jointly investigating the opioid industry. They have subpoenaed millions of pages of industry documents and hope to recover funds on behalf of state and local governments.

“People get addicted to the pain meds. They move from there, because of price sometimes and availability, to heroin. And then from heroin to fentanyl and carfentanil and other things,” said Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine. The federal statement of interest is “a game changer, and is very, very significant.”

“We think there are just too many” opioid prescriptions, Mr. Sessions said. He said a new Prescription Interdiction & Litigation, or PIL, Task Force will work with the Department of Health and Human Services and law enforcement to target the opioid makers and distributors.

Now that the federal government is backing the plaintiffs, it “will help unlock [opioid distribution] data so that we can hold manufacturers, distribute rs and pharmacies accountable for flooding communities with pills,” Richard Fields, one of the attorneys representing states and Native American nations in opioid litigation, predicted in a news release.

Purdue Pharma, the maker of the opioid OxyContin and a defendant in many of the lawsuits, released a statement saying that it is working “to explore meaningful solutions to the crisis of prescription and illicit opioid abuse addressed in the Attorney General’s statement,” and has supported state and federal efforts to curb prescribing excesses.

Allegheny County and the city of Pittsburgh are close to deciding whether to join the hundreds of governments that have sued the opioid manufacturers and pharmaceutical distributors. Most of the surrounding counties have already filed suits.

Many of the lawsuits filed to date have been consolidated into the federal court in Cleveland run by U.S. District Judge Dan A. Polster.

The lawsuits generally allege that the companies falsely claimed that the likelihood of a patient developing an addiction to prescribed opioids was very low and then aggressively marketed them for all manner of aches and pains. Many addicted patients later turned to heroin and illicit fentanyl. The result, according to the lawsuits, include increased costs for law enforcement, courts, human services and rehabilitation.

Mr. Sessions also announced the appointment of former federal prosecutor Mary Daly to the post of opioid coordinator at the Department of Justice.