Oklahoma AG Settles with Opiate Maker Endo
for $8.75M; Sues 3 More Distributors
By Ken Miller
Oklahoma will receive $8.75 million from two pharmaceutical companies in a deal announced on Jan. 10 that will end legal action the state was considering against the opioid manufacturers.
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter said the agreement was reached with Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Par Pharmaceutical Inc., both subsidiaries of Dublin-based Endo International.
On Jan. 13, three days after announcing the Endo settlement, Hunter filed suit in Cleveland County District Court against three distributors of opioids: Cardinal Health Inc.; McKesson Corp.; and AmerisourceBergen Corp.
Regarding the Endo case, Hunter said he had planned to file suit against the company alleging it violated state law by deceptively marketing opioid pain medications in a way that understated the risk of addiction.
The company has denied the allegations and admitted no wrongdoing as part of the agreement.
Endo’s Executive Vice President Matthew Maletta said in a statement that the company was pleased with the resolution.
Endo in 2016 withdrew the pain medication it produced, Opana and Opana ER, from the market and discontinued research and development into opiate drugs, Hunter said.
The majority of the money from the Endo settlement will go into the Opioid Lawsuit Settlement Fund, along with the Teva settlement that was reached last June, Hunter said. The money will remain in the account until legislation is passed to deploy the funds.
Distributors Suit
The AG’s lawsuit against the three opioid distributors deems Oklahoma’s opioid crisis a “man-made” one, the source of which “is the flood of prescription opioids that has inundated Oklahoma for the past two decades.”
The lawsuit alleges the defendants “distributed what can only be called a major oversupply of opioids into Oklahoma.”
Hunter’s spokesman, Alex Gerszewski, said the companies distributed opioids primarily to hospitals and pharmacies and were obligated to have a systems of checks and balances to alert them if there was a sharp, unexplained increase in opioid orders.
“We will show that these companies repeatedly ignored red flags and in doing so played a major role in breaking the dam of narcotic conservatism when they flooded the country with opioids,” Hunter said during a news conference announcing the suit.
McKesson said in a statement that “any suggestion that (the company) drove demand for opioids in this country reflects a fundamental misunderstanding and mischaracterization of our role as a distributor.”
AmerisourceBergen said in a statement that “beyond our reporting and immediate halting of potentially suspicious orders, we refuse service to customers we deem as a diversion risk.”
Cardinal Health did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hunter won a lawsuit in August against opioid manufacturer Johnson & Johnson, which was ordered to pay $465 million, a ruling that both Hunter and Johnson & Johnson have appealed.
Hunter’s office says the award is only enough to pay for one year of the state’s opioid abatement plan. Johnson & Johnson maintains the award should be reduced by $355 million to offset pretrial settlements reached with other drugmakers.
The state also reached settlements last year of $270 million with drugmaker Purdue Pharma and $85 million with Israeli-owned Teva Pharmaceuticals.
The Oklahoma lawsuit comes after Michigan in December sued opioid distributors Cardinal Health, McKesson Health, AmerisourceBergen and Walgreen Co.