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CVS, Walgreens Announce Opioid Payments Totaling $10 Billion

CVS Health and Walgreens Co. announced deals in principle on Wednesday to pay about $5 billion each to settle nationwide drug lawsuits, and a lawyer said Walmart is in discussions to reach a settlement. agree.

Together, the developments could be the last major round of settlement after years of litigation over the drug industry’s role in the overdose epidemic linked to more than 500,000 deaths in the US over the past two decades. .

In the lawsuits, governments say pharmacies sell prescription drugs they should have flagged as inappropriate.

The deals call for most of the funds from Woonsocket, Rhode Island-based CVS, and Illinois-based Deerfield, Walgreens, to be used to combat the opioid crisis.

Under the tentative plan, CVS will pay $4.9 billion to local governments and about $130 million to Native American tribes over a decade. Walgreens will pay $4.8 billion to governments and $155 million to tribes over 15 years. The exact amount depends on the number of governments involved in the transactions.

CVS announced its plans along with its earnings report on Wednesday, and Walgreens filed it with the SEC with some details.

“We are pleased to address these longstanding complaints and bringing them after us is in the best interests of all parties,” said Thomas Moriarty, CVS’s director of policy and general counsel. as well as our customers, colleagues and shareholders.” “We are committed to working with states, cities, and tribes, and will continue our own key initiatives to help reduce the illicit use of prescription opioids.”

CVS has launched educational programs and installed safe drug disposal units in stores and police departments, among other measures designed to reduce opioid abuse.

Neither CVS nor Walgreens admitted wrongdoing.

Walmart representatives did not return calls immediately on Wednesday, but Paul Geller, an attorney for the governments in the lawsuit, said negotiations are still ongoing with the company.

“These agreements will be the first resolutions reached with pharmacy chains and will equip communities across the country with much-needed tools to fight this epidemic and bring about positive change,” tangible,” a lawyer for the local government said in a statement. “In addition to multi-billion dollar payments, these companies have committed to making significant improvements to their dispensing methods to help reduce future addiction.”

The proposed treaties bring the total number of completed and final agreements nationwide between companies and governments to more than $50 billion.

Opioids have been implicated in more than 500,000 deaths in the US over the past two decades. Most of the initial deaths were related to prescription drugs. As governments, doctors and companies take steps to make them harder to abuse and obtain, people with opioid use disorders are increasingly turning to heroin, which is fatal. more than.

In recent years, the number of opioid deaths has risen to a record of about 80,000 a year. Most of those deaths have been linked to an illegally manufactured version of the powerful, lab-made drug that is popping up all over the US illicit drug supply.

The agreement was announced as litigation over the role of pharmacies in the opioid crisis is growing. On Tuesday, 18 companies – most of them related to pharmaceuticals – filed reports to a judge overseeing opioid litigation detailing where they face the lawsuits.

Only a handful of opioid settlements have larger dollar figures than CVS plans. Distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson this year completed a $21 billion consolidation deal, and pharmaceutical maker Johnson & Johnson completed a $5 billion deal.

Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, and members of the Sackler family that own the company had a proposed settlement that would involve up to $6 billion in cash, plus the value of the company, to be transferred. into a new entity with its profits used to fight the epidemic. That plan was adjourned by the court.

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Associated Press writer Tom Murphy of Indianapolis contributed to this report.



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