Opioid distribs, NYS settle for $1.18B

The three largest US drug distributors agreed mid-trial to pay up to $1.18 billion to settle claims by New York state and two of its biggest counties over the distributors’ role in the opioid epidemic, Attorney General Letitia James said on Tuesday.

McKesson, Cardinal Health and Amerisource-Bergen settled as state attorneys general prepare to announce as soon as this week a landmark $26 billion deal with the distributors and drugmaker Johnson & Johnson resolving cases nationwide.

The deal with New York state’s James and the Long Island counties of Nassau and Suffolk came three weeks into the first jury trial accusing companies of profiting from a flood of addictive painkillers that devastated communities.

“While no amount of money will ever compensate for the millions of addictions, the hundreds of thousands of deaths, or the countless communities decimated by opioids, this money will be vital in preventing any future devastation,” James said.

Hunter Shkolnik, a lawyer for Nassau County at the law firm Napoli Shkolnik, in a statement said that unlike the proposed national settlement, the New York deal “is not contingent on the rest of the country or other states joining.”

In a joint statement, the distributors called the settlement “an important step toward finalizing a broad settlement with states, counties, and political subdivisions.”