Pharmacies must pay $650.6 million to Ohio counties in opioid case

Pharmacy operators CVS, Walmart and Walgreens should pay a mixed $650.6 million to 2 Ohio counties to handle the injury executed by the opioid epidemic, a federal choose dominated on Wednesday.

The order by U.S. Decide Dan Polster in Cleveland comes after a jury final November concluded that the pharmacy chains helped create a public nuisance in Lake and Trumbull counties by over-supplying addictive ache drugs, a lot of which discovered their means onto the black market. The pharmacies have mentioned they’d enchantment that verdict.

Polster held a separate non-jury trial earlier this 12 months to resolve how a lot the businesses needed to pay.

“We’re disenchanted with this consequence,” Walgreens spokesman Fraser Engleman mentioned in a press release. “The info and the legislation didn’t help the jury verdict final fall, and they don’t help the courtroom’s choice now.”

CVS and Walmart didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.

Polster mentioned the sum should be paid over 15 years, with the quantity for the primary two years, or $86.7 million, to be paid right into a fund instantly. The choose additionally ordered the businesses to implement new procedures to fight unlawful diversion of opioid medicine.

The U.S. opioid epidemic has triggered greater than 500,000 overdose deaths over 20 years, based on authorities knowledge. Greater than 3,300 opioid lawsuits have been filed nationally towards drugmakers, distributors and pharmacy chains.

The litigation has resulted in a number of nationwide settlements, together with a $26 billion cope with Johnson & Johnson and the three main distributors, a $2.37 billion settlement with AbbVie Inc and a $4.25 billion settlement with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

Pharmacies have but to achieve a nationwide settlement.