Pharma: Opioid deal could hit $18 billion

The country’s three biggest drug distributors this week offered to pay $18 billion to settle thousands of opioid lawsuits, said Sara Randazzo in The Wall Street Journal, just ahead of a landmark federal trial set to begin next week. McKesson, AmerisourceBergen, and Cardinal Health would collectively pay the sum over 18 years for what plaintiffs allege was a failure “to implement adequate systems to halt suspicious drug orders as the opioid epidemic came into focus.” The companies are under pressure to make a deal capping their liability in the litigation; such an agreement would make them the first companies “to achieve a broad resolution of the opioid lawsuits outside of bankruptcy.”

Six defendants remain in what’s been “described as the most complex litigation ever,” said Lenny Bernstein in The Washington Post. The case opening next week involves two Ohio counties hit hard by the opioid crisis, and its resolution may well set the template for the thousands of other opioid suits. The litigation has already taken down Purdue Pharma, “the company most widely blamed for fueling the epidemic” of painkiller addiction; Purdue has filed for bankruptcy. Judge Dan Polster has pushed hard for a comprehensive mass settlement, which “would speed aid to the people and communities in need.” ■