CVS, Walgreens OK $10B Opioid Lawsuit Settlements; Walmart Negotiates

ACROSS AMERICA — More money to fund drug addiction and recovery programs will soon be headed to states across the country under a tentative agreement Wednesday with CVS and Walgreens to pay about $10 billion to local, state and tribal governments to resolve thousands of lawsuits claiming their pharmacies mishandled prescriptions for opioid painkillers.

A majority of plaintiffs still must approve the settlements. Walgreens and CVS both agreed to pay about $5 billion each. Walmart, another pharmacy behemoth, is still negotiating, reportedly in the $3.1 billion settlement range, Reuters and The New York Times reported.

The tentative agreements reached Wednesday could be the last after years of litigation over the drug industry’s role in the opioid overdose crisis that has been linked to more than 500,000 U.S. deaths since 1999, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Provisional CDC data for 2021 shows opioid overdose deaths increased from an estimated 70,029 in 2020 to 80,816 in 2021. Overdose deaths from synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, and psychostimulants such as methamphetamine and cocaine also continued to increase from 2020 to 2021. The CDC has said that 82 percent of overdose deaths involve synthetic opioids.

Large prescription opioid manufacturers and the three major drug distribution companies have already settled the lawsuits against them, but retail pharmacies have been slow to strike a deal with the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs argued the pharmacies should have flagged inappropriate prescriptions.

The new settlements, if accepted, would bring the total value of all settlements to more than $50 billion, with most of it required to be used by state and local governments to combat opioids.

“It’s one more culprit of the overdose crisis that is having to pay their dues,” Courtney Gary-Allen, organizing director of the Maine Recovery Advocacy Project, told the Associated Press. “Average Americans have been paying it for a long time.”

Neither Woonsocket, Rhode Island-based CVS nor Deerfield, Illinois-based Walgreens has admitted wrongdoing.

Both noted they have been addressing the crisis through such measures as starting educational programs and installing safe disposal units for drugs in stores and police departments. And both said the settlements would allow them to help while staying focused on their business.

“We are pleased to resolve these longstanding claims and putting them behind us is in the best interest of all parties, as well as our customers, colleagues and shareholders,” Thomas Moriarty, CVS chief policy officer and general counsel, said in a statement.

Walgreens said in a statement: “As one of the largest pharmacy chains in the nation, we remain committed to being a part of the solution, and this settlement framework will allow us to keep our focus on the health and wellbeing of our customers and patients, while making positive contributions to address the opioid crisis.”

Walmart did not respond to the AP’s request for comment.

“These agreements will be the first resolutions reached with pharmacy chains and will equip communities across the country with the much-needed tools to fight back against this epidemic and bring about tangible, positive change,” lawyers for local governments said in a statement. “In addition to payments totaling billions of dollars, these companies have committed to making significant improvements to their dispensing practices to help reduce addiction moving forward.”

If these settlements are completed, they would leave mostly smaller drug industry players as defendants in lawsuits. Just this week, a group of mostly regional pharmacy chains sent to a judge, who is overseeing federal litigation, information about claims they face, a possible precursor to scheduling trials or mediating settlements involving some of those firms.

“One by one, we are holding every player in the addiction industry accountable for the millions of lives lost or devastated by the opioid epidemic,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said in a statement. “The companies that helped to create and fuel this crisis must commit to changing their businesses practices, and to providing the resources needed for treatment, prevention and recovery.”

Most of the nation’s opioid overdose deaths initially involved prescription drugs. As governments, doctors and companies took steps to make them harder to abuse and obtain, people addicted to them increasingly switched to heroin, which proved more deadly.

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.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.