CVS, Walgreens in tentative deal to pay state and local governments billions for opioid crisis; Walmart still in talks

"CVS Health and Walgreen Co. announced agreements in principle Wednesday to pay about $5 billion each to settle lawsuits nationwide over the toll of opioids, and a lawyer said Walmart is in discussions for a deal, reports Geoff Mulvihill of The Associated Press. "The developments amount to what could be the last round of huge settlements after years of litigation over the drug industry's role in an overdose epidemic that has been linked to more than 500,000 deaths in the U.S. over the past two decades."

The epidemic had its roots in rural areas, especially Appalachia. "Most of the deaths initially involved prescription drugs," Mulvihll notes. As governments, doctors and companies took steps to make them harder to abuse and obtain, people with opioid use disorder increasingly switched to heroin, which proved more deadly. In recent years, opioid deaths have soared to record levels around 80,000 a year. Most of those deaths involve illicitly produced version of the powerful lab-made drug fentanyl, which is appearing throughout the U.S. supply of illegal drugs."

The lawsuits by state and local governments alleged that drugstores were filling prescriptions they should have recognized were inappropriate, largely because there were so many of them.

The proposed deal would have CVS pay the governments $4.9 billion and Native American tribes about $130 million over a decade, Mulvihill reports: "Walgreens would pay $4.8 billion to governments and $155 million to tribes over 15 years. The exact amount depends on how many governments join the deals. The deals call for most of the funds . . . to be used to fight the opioid crisis. CVS announced its plan along with an earnings report Wednesday, and Walgreens made an SEC filing with some details. . . . Neither CVS nor Walgreens is admitting wrongdoing."

Paul Geller, a lawyer for the governments, said talks are continuing with Walmart, which has a large pharmacy business and a disproportionate share of rural retail.

"The proposed pacts bring a nationwide tally of finalized and completed settlements between companies and governments to more than $50 billion," Mulvihill reports. "The settlement was announced as litigation over the role of pharmacies in the opioid crisis has ramped up. On Tuesday, 18 companies — most of them pharmacy-related — submitted reports to a judge overseeing opioid litigation detailing where they face lawsuits. Only a handful of opioid settlements have had bigger dollar figures than the CVS plan. Distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson this year finalized a combined settlement worth $21 billion and drugmaker Johnson & Johnson finalized a $5 billion deal. Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, and members of the Sackler family who own the company have a proposed settlement that would involve up to $6 billion in cash, plus the value of the company, which would be turned into a new entity with its profits used to combat the epidemic. That plan has been put on hold by a court."