West Virginia reaches multimillion-dollar settlement with Rite Aid over opioid lawsuit

West Virginia Lawyer Normal Patrick Morrisey (R) introduced a settlement with pharmacy chain Ceremony Support Thursday over a lawsuit alleging the corporate had contributed to the oversupply of opioids within the state.

Morrissey filed the lawsuit towards Ceremony Support and Walgreens in 2020, alleging they’d failed to watch and report orders for opioid prescriptions.

In a press release, Morrissey mentioned the settlement quantity might quantity to $30 million from Ceremony Support.

“So many lives have been misplaced and shattered by this scourge,” Morrissey mentioned. “With this settlement and different settlements, we are going to present important assist to these affected essentially the most by the opioid disaster in our state.”

The West Virginia lawsuit alleged that Ceremony Support’s failure to supervise suspicious opioid prescription orders resulted in “important losses by means of their [patients’] previous and ongoing medical remedy prices,” together with the price of rehabilitation, medical therapies and minors born hooked on opioids.

West Virginia by far has the very best drug overdose mortality price within the U.S. in keeping with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. The state has a loss of life price of 81.4 whereas the second highest loss of life price comes from Kentucky at 49.2.

This announcement comes simply months after an identical settlement was reached with the drug corporations Teva and Allergan for a $161.5 million settlement. On the time, Morrissey described the settlement as “record-breaking.”

The Hill has reached out to Ceremony Support for remark.