COLUMBUS – A $26 billion settlement between Dublin-based Cardinal Health, two other giant drug distribution companies and drugmaker Johnson & Johnson, and thousands of states and municipalities over the toll of the opioid crisis is significant but far from tying a neat bow on the tangle of still unresolved lawsuits surrounding the epidemic.
The deal calls for distributors Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen to each contribute $6.4 billion, with another $7/9 billion coming from McKesson and $5 billion from Johnson & Johnson.
“Thanks to the work from our nation’s attorneys general, the opioid makers and distributors that tore Ohio’s families apart are being held accountable and will support communities in their recovery,” said Gov. Mike DeWine who, as Ohio Attorney General, first sued Cardinal Health, McKesson and AmerisourceBergan in February of 2018, alleging that they were negligent and created a public nuisance by using unsafe distribution practices and by oversupplying the market with highly-addictive prescription opioids.
He had sued Johnson & Johnson in May of 2017.
Besides the monthslong process of state and local governments deciding whether to sign onto the settlement, there are three current cases in the U.S., others set to begin soon and the bankruptcy of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma to resolve.
And a case of claims brought by the Ohio counties of Lake and Trumbull against CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Walmart and Giant Eagle pharmacy chains is scheduled to start in October.
The two northeast Ohio counties’ lawsuits against the chains were the first to target retail pharmacy chains as both distributors and dispensers of painkillers.
The plaintiffs contend the chains’ stores in the two counties bought a combined total of nearly 130 million oxycodone and hydrocodone pills — the most frequently diverted and abused painkillers — between 2000 and 2014. That would be roughly 266 pills for every Lake County resident and 320 pills for every Trumbull County resident during that 15-year period.