NYC Opioid Crisis Is Fueled By Big Drug Firms, Lawsuit Says

NEW YORK, NY — New York City sued 18 major drug companies on Tuesday in the latest case accusing the firms of profiting from a nationwide opioid crisis that has cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars, officials say.

The lawsuit in state Supreme Court argues the drug manufacturers and distributors led patients and doctors over the last two decades to falsely believe their opioid painkillers were safer than they were, leading to widespread addiction and overdoses.

The city has borne a "substantial burden" in that time as the crisis required increased medical, public health and law enforcement spending, officials say. The drug overdose rate in the five boroughs more than doubled to 19.9 per 100,000 people in 2016 from just 8.2 in 2010, city officials said. Overdoses killed more New Yorkers than homicides and traffic deaths combined last year, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

"Big Pharma hooked millions of Americans on these drugs, deceived the people, and they human cost has been inestimable, and at the same time they've made billions of dollars in the process," de Blasio, a Democrat, said Tuesday at a news conference in the Bronx.

The lawsuit is one of hundreds that municipal officials across the country have filed in an effort to take public action against the drug crisis and recoup some of the money spent fighting it. At least nine New York counties, including Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, filed a similar case last year.

The defendants in the city's suit include 15 major drug manufacturers and their subsidiaries, such as Purdue Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson, Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Cephalon Inc. Also named are three distributors: McKesson Corporation, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen Corporation.

Two of the firms, Purdue Pharma and Endo Health Solutions, respectively produce OxyContin and Percocet, two of the most popular opioid painkillers. New York City doctors filled 2.7 million opioid prescriptions from 2014 to 2016, according to the city Department of Health.

Local and state officials have taken steps to curb the opioid crisis, which health officials say has hit poor neighborhoods the hardest. A $38 million city initiative has distributed 60,000 doses of naloxone, the opioid overdose antidote, trained doctors to avoid writing unnecessary painkiller prescriptions, and increased access to addiction treatment.

"Our suit seeks hundreds of millions of dollars the City has spent and will be required to spend to deal with the public nuisance created by the drug companies," Corporation Counsel Zachary Carter, the city's top lawyer, said in a statement. "Together with cities and counties across the country, we will work to hold the drug companies responsible for their actions."

Some similar lawsuits have been successful, according to the Florida law firm Levin Papantonio, which has represented governments in opioid cases.

Federal criminal investigations of large drug firms resulted in large settlements last year, including a $150 million civil penalty that McKesson Corporation paid for violating the Controlled Substances Act. And Purdue Pharma paid the state of Kentucky $24 million to settle a lawsuit there in 2015.

But civil lawsuits against drug firms generally have failed, even though criminal prosecutions have succeeded, Richard C. Ausness, a University of Kentucky College of Law professor, wrote in a 2014 article. Some state-led lawsuits against Purdue have led to settlements because the firm wants to "avoid the bad publicity and expense of protracted litigation," Ausness wrote.

"Nevertheless, the overall effectiveness of civil litigation in this area is highly questionable," he wrote

In a statement, Purdue Pharma "vigorously" denied the city's allegations. The company, which says its products account for 2 percent of all opioid prescriptions, touted its efforts to distribute prescribing guidance for doctors, develop "abuse-deterrent" drugs and increase access to naloxone.

"We are deeply troubled by the prescription and illicit opioid abuse crisis, and are dedicated to being part of the solution," Purdue said. "As a company grounded in science, we must balance patient access to FDA-approved medicines, while working collaboratively to solve this public health challenge."

The Healthcare Distribution Alliance, a trade group for drug distributors that counts some firms the city sued among its members also rejected the city's claims. Distributors only move drugs from one place to another, not produce or market them, the group said.

"Given our role, the idea that distributors are solely responsible for the number of opioid prescriptions written defies common sense and lacks understanding of how the pharmaceutical supply chain actually works and how it is regulated," John Parker, the alliance's senior vice president, said in a statement.

This story has been updated with a statement from Purdue Pharma and the Healthcare Distribution Alliance.

(Lead image: OxyContin pills are seen in Massachusetts in 2001. Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images)