New York Reaches Settlement on Opioid Crisis as States Near Deal Worth $26 Billion

MANHATTAN (CN) — New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a $1.1 billion settlement Tuesday with Cardinal Health, McKesson and Amerisource Bergen Drug, three leading distributors of addictive painkillers negligently put into the stream of commerce. The deal comes amid reports that the companies and a fourth, Johnson & Johnson, are close to a $26 billion settlement.

Johnson & Johnson is distinct from the three distributors as it manufactured an opioid painkiller and a fentanyl patch, while also supplying opium-based ingredients to other drugmakers. The Sackler family-owned Purdue Pharma, which manufactures oxycontin, face separate proceedings in bankruptcy court, while still others are going to trial, but the $26 billion deal would settle thousands of lawsuits clamoring for money that would fund addiction treatment and prevention services nationwide.

From the same suit that Attorney General James brought in 2019, Johnson and Johnson settled with New York last month for $230 billion and pledged to end its manufacturing and distribution of opioids nationwide.

Separate still from the suits against the drugmakers and distributors, states and consumers also seek to hold retail pharmacies like CVS liable. Some 3,000 states and cities are seeking relief, along with Native American tribes. 

James pointed to Tuesday's deal as the biggest one she has reached since taking office, but emphasized that that no amount of money will compensate for the millions of addictions.

“For more than two decades, the opioid epidemic has wreaked havoc on countless communities throughout New York and across the rest of the nation, killing hundreds of thousands of our friends and family members and addicting millions more,” said James in a statement. “And over the course of these past two decades, McKesson, Cardinal Health, and Amerisource Bergen distributed these opioids without regard to the national crisis they were helping to fuel.”

Cardinal, McKesson and AmerisourceBergen did not admit to any wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

“While the companies strongly dispute the allegations at issue in the trial, they believe this resolution will allow the companies to focus their attention and resources on the safe and secure delivery of medications and therapies while delivering meaningful relief to affected communities, and will also support efforts to achieve a broad resolution under the previously disclosed framework,” they said in a joint statement. “The distributors remain deeply concerned about the impact the opioid epidemic is having on communities across the nation and remain committed to being part of the solution.”

The three distributors from Tuesday's settlement did not say they would stop opioid distributing all together, but instead have a third-party monitor their distributions going forward.

The money will be paid over the next 17 years, with the first payment due in September. 

Endo Health Solutions, Teva Pharmaceuticals USA and Allergan Finance have not yet settled and are still fighting the claims in court.

While prescription opioids were once the leading cause of overdose deaths in the U.S., having killed nearly 250,000 people in the last two decades, fentanyl has quickly outpaced prescription drugs. Last year the U.S. saw its deadly year for drug overdoses, a staggering 93,000, and fentanyl caused 60% of those deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Still, in 2019 prescription opioids resulted in roughly 38 deaths a day across the country, a notable 7% decrease from the prior year. An estimated 3 million Americans are or have been addicted to some type of opioid at some point in their life.

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