Johnson & Johnson announced on Saturday that it will pay $263 million to settle claims that it fueled an opioid epidemic in New York and two of the state’s largest counties. The settlements remove the drugmaker from a jury trial scheduled to begin on Long Island on Tuesday, in which several major opioid manufacturers and distributors are also defendants.
In settling with New York state, as well as Nassau and Suffolk counties, Johnson & Johnson did not admit liability or wrongdoing. The $229.9 million state settlement also requires J&J to stop selling the painkillers across the country. In a statement, New York Attorney General Letitia James said, ‘The opioid epidemic has wreaked havoc” across the country. ‘Johnson & Johnson contributed to the spread of this fire.’
The healthcare company and the three largest drug distributors in the United States – AmerisourceBergen Corp, Cardinal Health Inc, and McKesson Corp – have proposed a $26 billion settlement to end thousands of opioid lawsuits. J&J has also been fighting an Oklahoma judge’s 2019 ruling that ordered the New Brunswick, New Jersey-based company to pay the state $465 million for deceptive opioid marketing. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said nearly 500,000 people died from opioid overdoses from 1999 to 2019.
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