Category:

With Purdue Pharma agreeing to settle with dozens of cities and states for a record-setting $12 billion, more opioid settlements could be on the way. But Purdue's agreement doesn't mean all the defendants are willing to go to the negotiating table quietly…Defendants in a Cleveland multidistrict litigation have gone so far as to attack the judge in charge of the case. In a...motion, retailers and distributors—but no drugmakers—demanded the removal of Judge Dan Polster for pushing a settlement. The absence of a pharma company there could show opioid makers are looking for deals rather than continuing to spar it out...READ MORE

Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of the blockbuster painkiller OxyContin, reached a tentative settlement...with 23 states and more than 2,000 cities and counties that sued the company over its role in the opioid crisis…Under terms of a plan negotiated for months, the Sacklers would relinquish control of Stamford, Conn.-based Purdue Pharma and admit no wrongdoing. The company would declare bankruptcy and be resurrected as a trust whose main purpose would be producing medications to combat the opioid epidemic...If the deal becomes final, it would be the first comprehensive settlement in the broad effort to hold drug companies accountable for their role in the opioid epidemic...READ MORE

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said...it will offer states more than $1.8 billion in new funding to fight the opioid epidemic...The funds will be used for expanding access to treatments for opioid overdosing and to gather case data from across states…The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will spend $900 million...to help states and territories track overdose data...HHS unit Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is awarding about $932 million to support prevention, treatment and recovery services...READ MORE

The state of Florida is partnering with the Military Health System to share prescription drug data to help providers in the state combat the risk of prescription drug misuse and abuse among the military population...the MHS prescription drug monitoring program began sharing the prescription drug data and analytics with 39 databases throughout the U.S., with the goal of enabling data-sharing among all 54 PDMPs across the country...Healthcare providers in Florida now have access to controlled substance prescription data from military health providers and facilities...READ MORE

Purdue Pharma...filed for bankruptcy...days after reaching a tentative settlement with many of the state and local governments suing it…The filing was anticipated before and after the tentative deal, which could be worth up to $12 billion over time, was struck..."This settlement framework avoids wasting hundreds of millions of dollars and years on protracted litigation," Steve Miller, chairman of Purdue's board of directors, said in a statement, "and instead will provide billions of dollars and critical resources to communities across the country trying to cope with the opioid crisis. We will continue to work with state attorneys general and other plaintiff representatives to finalize and implement this agreement as quickly as possible."...READ MORE

A group of 23 Kentucky hospitals is suing major drugmakers, distributors and retailers for their role in the opioid epidemic just days after a group of Texas hospitals unveiled a similar suit...The civil lawsuit filed...in Warren County, Kentucky, alleges more than 40 major companies such as CVS Health, Johnson & Johnson and Purdue Pharma along with individuals made actions that directly led to hospitals bearing the financial burden of caring for opioid victims. Kentucky is one of several states hit especially hard by the epidemic...The lawsuit said hospitals have had to add or modify services such as hiring additional security and providing more “specialized training for staff to accommodate the rapid rise in opioid-related illnesses,”...READ MORE

Federal health officials issued a national warning...against marijuana use by adolescents and pregnant women, as more states legalize the increasingly potent drug for medicinal and recreational use...Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Surgeon General Jerome Adams made the announcement, with Azar calling marijuana "a dangerous drug."...The warning comes as legal marijuana has grown into a $10-billion industry in the U.S. with nearly two-thirds of states legalizing it, mainly for medical uses. An increasing number of states and localities are also allowing personal, recreational use...Adams said science shows that marijuana is harmful to the developing brains of teenagers and to the human fetus. The drug has also gotten stronger, with a three-fold increase in the concentration of the active ingredient THC in cultivated plants over the last 20 years...READ MORE

Purdue’s pending opioid settlement with thousands of cities and counties, worth between $10 billion and $12 billion, could rank as the largest deal ever inked by a pharma if it passes a Cleveland federal judge’s muster. But where do pharma’s other major settlements fall on that list?...READ MORE

Here’s the list of pharma’s top 10 largest U.S. settlements.

1. Purdue Pharma—$10 billion to 12 billion*
2. Merck & Co.—$4.85 billion
3. American Home Products Corp. (now Wyeth)—$3.75 billion
4. GlaxoSmithKline—$3 billion
5. Pfizer—$2.3 billion
6. Takeda—$2.3 billion
7. Johnson & Johnson—$2.2 billion
8. Abbott Laboratories—$1.6 billion
9. Eli Lilly—$1.42 billion
10. Reckitt Benckiser—$1.4 billion

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and lawyers representing local governments both said...that they’re interested in continuing negotiations to settle lawsuits...a day after two state attorneys general told colleagues that their talks with the company were at an impasse and that they expected the company to file imminently for bankruptcy...The statements add another layer of uncertainty to attempts to strike a deal with a company that’s portrayed as a prime villain in the national opioid crisis...READ MORE

The U.S. government can do more to reduce demand for fentanyl and should stop shifting the blame onto others, China said...in another riposte to Trump administration criticism that China is not helping resolve the drug problem...U.S. officials say China is the main source of illicit fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances that are trafficked into the United States, much of it through international mail. China denies that most of the illicit fentanyl...originates in China...READ MORE