Allergan Reaches Tentative $2.37 Billion Deal to Settle Opioid Suits

A bipartisan group of state attorneys general announced Friday morning that it has entered into a deal with pharmaceutical company Allergan for $2.37 billion to resolve more than 2,500 opioid-related lawsuits brought by states, local governments and tribes across the country. have compromised, those who suffer during the ongoing. The opioid epidemic.

The company declined to comment, but a quarterly earnings report Friday by Allergan’s parent company, AbbVie, described the amount as “fees related to a potential settlement of litigation involving past sales of Allergan’s opioid products.” .

The proposed agreement is a collaborative agreement with Teva Pharmaceuticals to an in-principle $4.25 billion deal announced earlier in the week. Lawyers familiar with the talks said the joint deal, when finalized, could be worth $6.6 billion if a significant majority of states and communities sign on. This is more than a nationwide agreement made with Johnson & Johnson or an offer from Purdue Pharma, the opioid maker with a much higher public profile.

The deals are largely connected because, in 2016, Teva bought Allergan’s generic drug portfolio, which also included its substantial opioid business. Teva made this week’s settlement partly to reach its own deal for Allergan’s opioid liability.

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said, “We’ve worked hard to get the best outcome for Americans living with the opioid crisis, and it’s beneficial to take another step in the right direction.” Conversations with Allergan and Teva. “We continue to prioritize holding manufacturers accountable, while ensuring that victims of this pandemic get the help they need.”

Unlike Teva’s deal, whereby plaintiffs can elect to receive a portion of the payment in drugs to reverse drug overdoses and treat addiction instead of cash, Allergan offers all-cash without a product. That is, lawyers familiar with the talks said. Teva’s payments to states and communities would be distributed over 13 years, while Allergan would be paid out over six years. The amounts for both pharmaceutical companies include settlement figures that were already affected over the past year with a handful of states and counties.

Allergan and Teva both sell branded as well as generic opioid pain relievers. Lawyers for thousands of organizations insisted that these manufacturers, like many others, exaggerated the benefits of opioids for doctors and the public, and downplayed the addictive properties of the drugs. Furthermore, although companies are required to report suspicious orders to authorities, both failed to do so, the lawyers said.

Teva had said the potential settlement was not an acknowledgment of wrongdoing.

Deals still have a way to go before money really starts flowing into communities. Issues such as the allocation of funds, strict monitoring of suspicious orders and the creation of a public repository of internal documents are yet to be resolved.

North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein commented on the lawsuit over the arc of the opioid epidemic and its emergence. “In 2020, nine North Carolinians died of opioid overdoses daily,” he said. “There is no amount that can repair that kind of damage. But there is hope for a recovery, and thanks to our ongoing work to hold these companies accountable, the people of this state are getting the treatment they need and need to recover.” Support is coming. And we’re still not done.”