Update: Baltimore Reaches Opioid Litigation Settlements with Teva and Walgreens

Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott announced yesterday that one week before a trial is to begin, the city reached an $80 million settlement with Teva Pharmaceuticals to resolve the city’s claims over the firm’s role in fueling Baltimore’s opioid epidemic.

Teva will make an initial payment of $35 million by year’s end and pay the remainder by July 1, 2025.

Today, the city announced that it has also reached a settlement with Walgreens.

The settlement with Teva was the fourth for the city in connection with its ongoing litigation against opioid distributors and manufacturers and brings the city’s recoveries from opioid defendants to $322.5 million. It follows settlements with Allergan and CVS for $45 million each, as well as a $152.5 million settlement with Cardinal Health.

The city said that as part of the Walgreens settlement, it agreed to not disclose the specific terms of the agreement for 30 days. However, the city said the total of settlements has now reached $402.5 million, an increase of $80 million from the total before the Walgreens deal.

The full terms of the Walgreens agreement will be made public on October 3.

The case against the remaining defendants — Johnson & Johnson, McKesson and AmerisourceBergen — is expected to proceed to trial on September 16.

The city has pursued the cases after deciding to opt out of the national settlement. In 2021, Cardinal Health and three other companies — McKesson, AmerisourceBergen, and Johnson & Johnson— reached a global settlement with nearly every other state and municipality. Under the terms of the national settlement with Teva, the city would only have received $11 million paid over 13 years. Instead, in this settlement, the city will receive more than seven times that amount in less than a year.

In total, not counting today’s Walgreens settlement, the city has secured more than three times the total amount it would have received from all available global settlements with opioid defendants.

Per the agreement, the city has promised to allocate the monies to education and outreach efforts about the 988 suicide and crisis system, the Penn North Recovery Center, and BMore Power and to the ongoing opioid epidemic in Baltimore.

“Nothing can undo the harm that they caused or bring back the lives lost, but we are determined to implement these resources in a way that helps move our City’s fight against this epidemic forward,” said Mayor Brandon M. Scott. “It is my hope that these funds will help save lives and ensure that fewer families and communities have to endure the pain of losing loved ones to opioid overdose.”

City Solicitor Ebony Thompson praised the work put in the case by the city’s outside counsel, Susman Godfrey, and its internal law department team, saying the work has “paid off for the city.”

The lawsuit alleges that major manufacturers spent billions to market their products as safe, effective pain relievers rather than as addictive pills meant for short-term use to treat acute pain. The city seeks to force the manufacturers and distributors of these opioids to assist in efforts abate the effects of this epidemic. The suit claims that hundreds of Baltimore citizens continue to die every year of opioid overdoses, which is more than from homicides, while tens of thousands more suffer from the effects of opioid use disorders, including struggling to hold jobs and additional health problems.