CVS, Walgreens And Walmart Agree To Pay More Than $10 Billion To Settle Opioid Claims

Topline

CVS, Walgreens and Walmart have reached deals to pay more than $10 billion in total to settle claims the companies mishandled opioid painkiller prescriptions, the latest companies to agree to major payouts over allegations they helped fuel the opioid epidemic.

Oxycodone pills are shown.

Key Facts

CVS announced on Wednesday it had agreed in principle to pay $5 billion over the next 10 years to settle lawsuits from state and local governments over its handling of opioids, including $4.9 billion to states and political subdivisions and approximately $130 million to Native American tribes.

Walgreens will pay up to $4.79 billion to state, county and city governments and as well as $154 million to tribes over 15 years as well as $753 in attorneys’ fees over six years, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing from the company, totaling roughly $5.7 billion, while Walmart will pay $3 billion, according to Bloomberg, which cited anonymous sources familiar with the agreement.

Both CVS and Walgreens issued statements saying the payments were not admissions of wrongdoing.

Walmart declined to respond to a request for comment from Forbes.

The agreements mark an “important step” in efforts to “hold pharmacy defendants accountable for their role in the opioid epidemic,” according to the group of court-appointed negotiators involved in the National Prescription Opiate Litigation, which consolidated the thousands of lawsuits against companies over opioid-related claims.

Big Number

More than 3,000. That’s how many local and state governments have filed suits against pharmacies, distributors and opioid producers for obscuring the drugs’ addictive properties and helping contribute to the opioid epidemic

Key Background

The settlements—which follow months of negotiations between the pharmaceutical companies and a group of six state attorneys general, according to Bloomberg—mark one of the biggest payouts from pharmaceutical companies over opioid allegations. The deals won’t be final until states, counties and cities agree to them. The state and local governments have said the funding will be used to curb the opioid crisis. Some of the lawsuits brought against the companies argue the drugstores did not take enough actions to halt the distribution of pills into communities, while the pharmacies have claimed they followed proper protocols and tried to ensure the pills were not misused. The deals come three months after the three pharmaceutical companies agreed to pay $650 million in total to multiple Ohio counties over opioid-related claims. The opioid crisis has claimed more than half a million lives due to overdose in the last two decades, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Sackler family—the owners of Purdue Pharma who reaped major profits from sales of their opioid painkiller OxyContin—agreed to pay up to $6 billion in March to settle lawsuits for their involvement in the opioid crisis, though the family has never admitted any wrongdoing.

Tangent

The potential agreements come several months after Johnson & Johnson as well as three major drug distributors, Cardinal, McKesson, and AmerisourceBergen, agreed to pay $26 billion to settle a slew of lawsuits from states and cities that alleged they helped fuel the opioid crisis, though none of the companies acknowledged wrongdoing. Some of the funds have gone to health care and drug treatment programs to help stem the opioid crisis.

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