A bipartisan group of state prosecutors will, in principle, settle more than 2,500 opioid-related proceedings filed with pharmaceutical company Allergan on Friday morning by states, local governments and tribes across the country suffering. Announced that it has reached a $ 2.37 billion agreement. Opioid epidemic.
The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but a quarterly earnings report by Allergan’s parent company AbbVie on Friday said the amount “may be settled in a lawsuit related to the sale of Allergan’s past opioid products. Characterized as “related costs”.
The proposed settlement is, in principle, an ancillary agreement for a $ 4.25 billion transaction announced by Teva Pharmaceuticals earlier in the week. The final deal could be worth $ 6.6 billion if signed by the majority of states and communities, according to lawyers familiar with the negotiations. This is higher than Johnson & Johnson’s national reconciliation and offer from the much more well-known opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma.
The main reason is that in 2016, Teva acquired Allergan’s generic drug portfolio, which includes a substantial opioid business. Teva relied in part on this week’s settlement for Allagan’s reaching its own agreement on opioid liability.
“We worked hard to get the best results for Americans affected by the opioid crisis, and it’s rewarding to take another step in the right direction,” said Attorney General of Iowa. Said Tom Miller. Negotiations between Allergan and Teva. “We continue to prioritize holding manufacturers accountable while ensuring that victims of this epidemic receive the support they need.”
All Allagan offers are in cash, unlike Teva’s deal, where plaintiffs can choose to reverse drug overdose and receive some of the drug payments used to treat addiction instead of cash. Yes, no product, said a lawyer familiar with the negotiations. Payments to the state and community of Teva will be over 13 years and Allagan will be over 6 years. The amounts for both pharmaceutical companies probably include settlement amounts that have already been hit in a few states and counties over the past year.
Both Allergan and Teva have sold brands and common opioid painkillers. Thousands of substance lawyers argued that these manufacturers, like many other manufacturers, exaggerated the benefits of opioids to doctors and the general public and downplayed drug addiction. In addition, the lawyers said the two companies were required to report suspicious orders to the authorities, but neither did.
Teva said the potential agreement does not admit fraud.
There are still ways to go trading before the money actually begins to flow into the community. Issues such as allocation of funds, tighter monitoring of suspicious orders, and creation of public repositories of internal documents have not yet been resolved.
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein commented on the opioid epidemic arc and the proceedings that arise from it. “In 2020, nine North Carolinas died daily from opioid overdose,” he said. “There is no money to repair such losses, but there is hope for recovery, and thanks to the ongoing efforts to make these companies accountable, the people of this state will be healthy. We have the treatment and support we need, and we’re not done yet. “
