The American pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson agreed to stop the sale opioids in all USA and pay $ 230 million under a settlement with the State of New York.
New York Attorney General Leticia James has announced that the money will be paid in installments over the next nine years. With the settlement, J&J will avoid the trial that is scheduled to start on Tuesday in Long Island, where many opioid companies and distributors of these drugs are accused. J&J has not acknowledged its responsibility or the offenses in its agreement with New York State and Naso and Safoc counties.
“The opioid epidemic has wreaked havoc” across the country. “Johnson & Johnson helped fuel this fire,” James said in a statement. The prosecutor stressed that her goal is to transfer resources “to the communities affected by the opioids as soon as possible”.
Tuesday’s trial is one of many planned for this year
J&J said the arrangements were in line with previous agreements it had made to pay $ 5 billion to meet the requirements of states, municipalities, counties and local governments across the United States. The company and the largest drug distributors in the US (AmerisourceBergen Corp., Cardinal Health Inc and McKesson Corp.) have proposed to pay a total of $ 26 billion to withdraw thousands of lawsuits against them. J&J also appealed a 2019 ruling by an Oklahoma judge and ordered it to pay the state $ 465 million for misleading opioid marketing.
Tuesday’s trial is one of many planned for this year. Others are in progress in California and West Virginia. Among those charged are pharmaceutical companies AbbVie Inc and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, as well as the pharmacy chain Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that nearly 500,000 people died from opioid overdoses between 1999-2019.
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