Oklahoma reaches 4 new opioid settlements totaling more than $226 million

Oklahoma has reached settlements with three main pharmacy chains and an opioid producer totaling greater than $226 million, state officers introduced Wednesday.

Together with the brand new settlements with drugmaker Allergan and pharmacy chains CVS, Walgreens and Walmart, Oklahoma has obtained greater than $900 million from opioid makers and distributors to assist tackle the state’s opioid disaster.

“The opioid disaster has inflicted unspeakable ache on Oklahoma households and triggered the deaths of 1000’s of Oklahomans,” Oklahoma Lawyer Normal mentioned in an announcement. “Between 2016 and 2020, greater than 3,000 Oklahomans died from opioid overdoses.”

Almost all of the settlement funds have to be used to assist remediate the impacts of the opioid disaster in Oklahoma, together with prevention and therapy providers.

In November, three of the biggest U.S. pharmacy chains reached settlements with states over the toll of opioids value a complete of about $13 billion. Beneath the separate offers, CVS Well being and Walgreen Co. are every paying about $5 billion and Walmart is paying greater than $3 billion. None has admitted wrongdoing.

Allergan did not instantly reply to a message searching for remark concerning the Oklahoma settlement.

The settlements are the newest in a wave of offers that state and native governments have struck with corporations, together with drugmakers, distribution corporations and even a consulting agency, at the same time as some lawsuits over how the medication are marketed and bought proceed. 

The full of proposed and finalized settlements is now greater than $50 billion. In contrast to with tobacco firm settlements within the Nineteen Nineties, the majority of the cash is required for use to deal with the opioid disaster, which has been linked to properly over 500,000 U.S. deaths since 2000.

In 2019, Oklahoma, beneath then-Lawyer Normal Mike Hunter, was the primary state to succeed in a settlement with Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, for $270 million. Most of that cash was used to determine a Nationwide Middle for Dependancy Research and Remedy at Oklahoma State College in Tulsa.

Oklahoma was additionally the primary state to go to trial in a lawsuit in opposition to the makers of opioids blamed for contributing to the nation’s opioid disaster. 

A district courtroom choose in 2019 discovered that New Jersey-based drugmaker Johnson & Johnson and its Belgium-based subsidiary Janssen Prescription drugs violated the state’s public nuisance statute and in the end ordered the corporate to pay the state $465 million to assist tackle the state’s opioid disaster. 

Nevertheless that call was later overturned by the state’s Supreme Court docket, which decided the trial courtroom choose wrongly interpreted the state’s public nuisance legislation.