By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) -The three largest U.S. drug distributors and drugmaker Johnson & Johnson have agreed to pay $590 million to resolve claims by Native American tribes that the companies fueled an opioid epidemic in their communities, according to court filings.
Tuesday’s deal came after the distributors, McKesson Corp, AmerisourceBergen Corp and Cardinal Health Inc, along with J&J last year proposed paying up to $26 billion to resolve similar claims by states and local governments.
That proposed settlement with states and local governments did not cover lawsuits and potential claims by the country’s 574 federally recognized Native American tribes and Alaska Native villages, which experienced higher rates of opioid overdoses compared to other communities.
Under the latest settlement agreement, the three distributors would pay nearly $440 million over seven years. That is on top of the $75 million they agreed in September to pay the Cherokee Nation in the first settlement with a tribe.
J&J agreed to pay $150 million over two years, according to a court filing https://tmsnrt.rs/3rgAkmK in federal court in Cleveland, Ohio, where most of the opioid litigation is consolidated.
J&J in a statement said it did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement. It said its actions promoting prescription opioid pain medications was “appropriate and responsible,” adding that it no longer sold such drugs.
The distributors did not respond to requests for comment. They have denied wrongdoing.
More than 3,300 lawsuits have been filed largely by state, local and tribal governments seeking to hold those and other companies responsible for an opioid abuse epidemic that led to hundreds of thousands of U.S. overdose deaths over the last two decades.
The lawsuits accuse the distributors of lax controls that allowed massive amounts of addictive painkillers to be diverted into illegal channels, and drugmakers including J&J of downplaying the addiction risk in their opioid marketing.
Lawyers for the tribes in a filing said the opioid epidemic’s disproportionate impact on their populations resulted in them incurring increased costs for healthcare, social services, child welfare, law enforcement and other services.
Tuesday’s deal came a week after the bigger $26 billion settlement reached a crucial milestone, as most eligible local governments in participating states agreed to join the deal. Five states have not settled with some or all of the four companies.
A federal judge in West Virginia is considering whether to hold the distributors liable for fueling the epidemic in communities in that state, and the three companies are in the midst of a $95 billion trial in Washington state.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
