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Johnson & Johnson was on the losing end of the nation’s first opioid trial...even though it's appealing, the company is already fighting to limit its future liability as politicians put on a squeeze for more payments down the line...After the August verdict against the company for $572 million, Gov. Kevin Stitt and two prominent Republican lawmakers filed a brief arguing that future costs beyond the first year shouldn’t go to taxpayers...J&J should pay billions in addition to the $572 million verdict over many years to fund crisis abatement...READ MORE

A landmark trial over the U.S. opioid epidemic is on track to begin on Monday after drug companies and local governments failed to agree on a settlement on Friday that had been expected to be valued at around $50 billion...Top executives of the largest U.S. drug distributors and drugmaker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd left a Cleveland courthouse on Friday and lawyers for states and thousands of local governments said there was no agreement...After nearly 11 hours of negotiations...it was “profoundly disappointing” that local governments would not go along with a settlement he valued at $48 billion, including $22 billion in cash and $26 billion in products and services...READ MORE

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Administration jointly issued warning letters to four online networks for illegally marketing unapproved and misbranded versions of opioid medicines, the agencies said...The networks which were issued the warning letters...are Divyata, Euphoria Healthcare Pvt Ltd, JCM Dropship and Meds4U, which operate a total of 10 websites...The networks also violated the Controlled Substances Act by not registering the online pharmacies with the DEA despite advertising for the sale of opioids...READ MORE

Fifty-eight people have been charged with engaging in healthcare fraud schemes that centered on the illegal distribution of more than 6 million opioid pills across Texas...Some 16 medical professionals, including six doctors and seven pharmacists, were charged in the schemes, which featured one pharmacy in Houston that illegally dispensed more than 760,000 pills from March 2018 to September 2019…The schemes in Texas entailed Medicare fraud that resulted in more than $66 million in losses...They also included $158 million in fraudulent claims for compound creams and $23 million in tax evasion...Federal authorities have frozen $60 million in assets of the people accused...READ MORE

Drug law enforcement officers from China and the United States will jointly brief the media...on a fentanyl smuggling case, in an unusual disclosure of rare Sino-U.S. cooperation in cracking down on fentanyl crimes...China’s National Narcotics Control Commission and enforcement officers from both countries will give “detailed information” at a press conference in Xingtai city in northern Hebel province about a fentanyl smuggling case that was jointly uncovered by both sides, according to a notice circulated by the State Council Information Office...The sudden show of cooperation announced on Tuesday coincides with intense bilateral negotiations over a phase-one trade agreement which Trump said he hoped to sign with Xi...READ MORE

A Virginia doctor convicted in May of illegally prescribing more than half a million opioid tablets was sentenced...to 40 years in a federal prison...Joel Smithers, who was convicted of 859 counts of illegally prescribing drugs... was sentenced to 480 months in prison in US District Court for the Western District of Virginia in Abingdon, where he was also given a supervised release of three years and ordered to pay a special assessment of $86,000...READ MORE

As Purdue Pharma undertakes the laborious bankruptcy process, plaintiffs in thousands of opioid suits are looking to lock in settlement funds from the stripped-down drugmaker. Purdue—for its part—is hoping to secure incentives for its employees in the meantime...Purdue has asked permission to pay out more than $34 million in annual and long-term incentives to its employees as the company undergoes a court-supervised restructuring, according to a Chapter 11 motion filed...in the Southern District of New York...READ MORE

Mexican drug cartels are making “mass quantities” of fake prescription pills containing the synthetic opioid fentanyl with the intention of selling them to users throughout North America...Mexico’s cartels have for years diversified into a wide variety of illicit activity, helped by porous domestic law enforcement agencies as well as long-standing trafficking routes into the United States...READ MORE

Endo International Plc, Johnson & Johnson and other drugmakers that face litigation over the opioid crisis are exploring a way to settle the cases by participating in Purdue Pharma LP’s bankruptcy...Five drugmakers battling the cases - Endo, J&J, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, Allergan Plc and Mallinckrodt Plc - are looking to enact a global settlement of the litigation that would be implemented through Purdue’s Chapter 11 case...The mechanism, if successful, would allow the companies to contribute money into a trust set up through the bankruptcy in exchange for a complete release from liability...READ MORE

Fourteen doctors and other medical professionals were among those charged in fraud schemes that totaled $258 million in California, Oregon and Arizona...Charges were brought...against 34 people for alleged Medicare and Medicaid fraud…The charges targeted schemes billing Medicare and Medicaid for services, testing, and prescriptions that were not medically necessary or not actually provided to beneficiaries...READ MORE