FILE – This Aug. 29, 2018, file photo shows an arrangement of Oxycodone pills in New York. The three biggest U.S. drug distribution companies and the drugmaker Johnson & Johnson are on the verge of a $26 billion settlement covering thousands of lawsuits over the toll of opioids across the U.S., two people with knowledge of the plans told The Associated Press. The settlement involving AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson is expected this week. A $1 billion-plus deal involving the three distributors and the state of New York was planned for Tuesday, July 20, 2021.
FILE – In this Feb. 24, 2021, file photo, Johnson & Johnson logo appears on the exterior of a first aid kit in Walpole, Mass. The three biggest U.S. drug distribution companies and the drugmaker Johnson & Johnson are on the verge of a $26 billion settlement covering thousands of lawsuits over the toll of opioids across the U.S., two people with knowledge of the plans told The Associated Press. The settlement involving AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson is expected this week. A $1 billion-plus deal involving the three distributors and the state of New York was planned for Tuesday, July 20.
FILE – In this July 17, 2019, file photo, a pedestrian passes a McKesson sign on an office building in San Francisco. The three biggest U.S. drug distribution companies and the drugmaker Johnson & Johnson are on the verge of a $26 billion settlement covering thousands of lawsuits over the toll of opioids across the U.S., two people with knowledge of the plans told The Associated Press. The settlement involving McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health is expected this week. A $1 billion-plus deal involving the three distributors and the state of New York was planned for Tuesday, July 20, 2021.
FILE – This Oct. 16, 2019, file photo shows a sign of the Cardinal Health, Inc. corporate office in Dublin, Ohio. The three biggest U.S. drug distribution companies and the drugmaker Johnson & Johnson are on the verge of a $26 billion settlement covering thousands of lawsuits over the toll of opioids across the U.S., two people with knowledge of the plans told The Associated Press. The settlement involving Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen and McKesson is expected this week. A $1 billion-plus deal involving the three distributors and the state of New York was planned for Tuesday, July 20, 2021.
FILE – This Oct. 16, 2019, file photos shows an AmerisourceBergen Corp. office building in Conshohocken, Pa. The three biggest U.S. drug distribution companies and the drugmaker Johnson & Johnson are on the verge of a $26 billion settlement covering thousands of lawsuits over the toll of opioids across the U.S., two people with knowledge of the plans told The Associated Press. The settlement involving AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson is expected this week. A $1 billion-plus deal involving the three distributors and the state of New York was planned for Tuesday, July 20, 2021.
The three biggest U.S. drug distribution companies and the drugmaker Johnson & Johnson are on the verge of a $26 billion settlement covering thousands of government lawsuits over the toll of opioids across the U.S., a group of lawyers for local governments said Tuesday.
The national settlement is expected to be the biggest single settlement in the complicated universe of litigation over the opioid epidemic in the U.S. It won’t end the cases, but it would change them.
Lawyers said a full announcement could happen this week. But that would not be the end of it, rather the start of a monthslong process for state and local governments to decide whether to sign on.
“This is a nationwide crisis and it could have been and should have been addressed perhaps by other branches of government,” Paul Geller, one of the lead lawyers representing local governments across the U.S., said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday. “But this really is an example of the use of litigation for fixing a national problem.”
Three trials over opioids currently underway are expected to continue and others on court calendars across the U.S. are expected to begin in the coming months.
As a precursor to the bigger deal, New York reached an agreement Tuesday with the distribution companies AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson to settle an ongoing trial in the state. That deal alone would generate more than $1 billion to abate the damage done by opioids there. The trial is expected to continue, but the settlement leaves only three drug manufacturers as defendants.