According to court documents released on Friday, the three biggest drug distributors in the United States have agreed to pay $300 million to settle allegations made by benefit plans and health insurers that the companies contributed to the country’s deadly opioid crisis.
A judge’s permission is needed for the proposed class action settlement with McKesson Corp. (MCK), Cencora Inc. (COR), and Cardinal Health Inc. (CAH), which was revealed in a file in federal court in Cleveland, Ohio.
Drug distributors strike $300 million opioid settlement
These corporations had previously agreed to pay $21 billion to settle accusations brought against them by state and municipal governments. These governments had accused these corporations of having inadequate controls that enabled vast quantities of addictive opioids to be diverted into illicit channels.
In a statement, Paul Geller, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said that the agreement reached on Friday encompassed third-party payers such as union funds.
According to Geller, these payers “largely paid for the overprescribed and overmarketed pills and for the treatment required when their plan beneficiaries inevitably suffered from opioid use disorder.”
One of the settlement terms was that the distributors would not acknowledge any wrongdoing. Cencora, formerly AmerisourceBergen, will pay 31% of the $300 million, while McKesson will pay 38.1%. Cardinal will pay 30.9% of the whole amount.
The lawsuit was one of dozens that have been brought to hold different drug manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacies accountable for a drug addiction pandemic that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of fatalities throughout the country due to overdoses over the last two decades.
The action has resulted in settlements of more than fifty billion dollars, the majority of which have been reached with state and municipal governments.
Source: Yahoo News
