U.S. drug distributors prevail in $2.5 bln West Virginia opioid case

Tablets of the opioid-based Hydrocodone at a pharmacy in Portsmouth, Ohio, June 21, 2017. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston/File Picture

July 4 (Reuters) – McKesson Corp (MCK.N), AmerisourceBergen Corp (ABC.N) and Cardinal Well being Inc (CAH.N) usually are not liable for fueling an opioid epidemic in part of West Virginia, a federal choose dominated on Monday.

The choice from U.S. District Choose David Faber got here in a $2.5 billion case introduced by town of Huntington and Cabell County, which at trial sought to indicate the three largest U.S. drug distributors prompted a surge in opioid prescriptions of their communities.

However in a long-awaited, 184-page ruling, Faber mentioned the amount of prescription painkillers shipped to these communities was because of docs’ “good religion” prescribing choices and that the businesses didn’t trigger any oversupply of opioids.

“The opioid disaster has taken a substantial toll on the residents of Cabell County and town of Huntington,” he wrote. “And whereas there’s a pure tendency to assign blame in such circumstances, they have to be determined not primarily based on sympathy, however on the information and the legislation.”

Cardinal Well being in an announcement applauded the choice, which it mentioned acknowledged that it solely offered a “safe channel to ship drugs of all types.” McKesson mentioned it maintains robust applications to stop the diversion of opioids to illicit channels.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs had no instant remark.

Greater than 3,300 lawsuits have been filed by native and tribal governments over the opioid abuse and overdose epidemic. They accuse drugmakers of downplaying the dangers of the addictive ache medicines and distributors and pharmacies of ignoring crimson flags that they had been being diverted into unlawful channels.

U.S. officers have mentioned that by 2019, the well being disaster led to almost 500,000 opioid overdose deaths over twenty years.

The distributors, together with drugmaker Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N), in July agreed to pay as much as $26 billion to resolve the hundreds of lawsuits introduced towards them by state and native governments across the nation. [nL1N2V01ZA

But communities in hard-hit West Virginia opted against joining a national opioid settlement in favor of seeking a bigger recovery.

Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Bill Berkrot

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