By Brendan Pierson
(Reuters) – A court-appointed panel on Friday really helpful divvy up a pool of $2.13 billion in authorized charges from nationwide drug business settlements over the U.S. opioid disaster, with high corporations set to obtain a whole lot of tens of millions of {dollars}.
The panel gave nationwide agency Motley Rice the most important share, with 18.6% of the funds, or $396 million. Different corporations with giant shares embrace New York-based Simmons Hanly Conroy, with 11.4%, or $244 million; California-based Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, with 8.2%, or $174 million; and California-based Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, with 5.65%, or $120 million.
The $2.13 billion payment pool comes out of settlements totaling greater than $46 billion that drugmakers, distributors and pharmacies have reached to resolve lawsuit by native and Native American tribal governments accusing them of fueling an epidemic of opioid habit.
The cash was put aside as a so-called frequent profit fund, to compensate regulation corporations for work they did that benefited all the plaintiffs within the litigation.
U.S. District Choose Dan Polster, who has overseen the sprawling opioid litigation since 2017, additionally dominated Friday that corporations have till June 21 to enchantment the panel’s suggestions earlier than they change into closing.
The charges stem from settlements with drugmakers Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:), AbbVie (NYSE:) and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (NYSE:); distributors Cencora, McKesson (NYSE:) and Cardinal Well being (NYSE:); and pharmacies CVS, Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ:) and Walmart (NYSE:).
They don’t embrace a settlement of as much as $6 billion with bankrupt OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, which is funded by that firm’s Sackler household house owners in trade for a protect from future lawsuits. The U.S. Supreme Court docket is presently weighing whether or not that settlement is authorized.
Opioid settlements, together with each the nationwide offers and separate agreements negotiated by particular person states, now whole nicely over $50 billion. Nonetheless, many state and native governments have but to develop detailed plans for a way they are going to spend the cash to treatment the harms attributable to opioids.
Greater than 800,000 folks died of opioid overdoses from 1999 via 2023, in keeping with knowledge from the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. Plaintiffs within the lawsuits say that drugmakers downplayed the medication’ dangers, and distributors and pharmacies ignored crimson flags that they had been being diverted into unlawful channels.