Oklahoma’s attorney general on Thursday had dropped all but a single claim against Johnson & Johnson and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd in a closely watched lawsuit alleging the drugmakers helped fuel the U.S. opioid epidemic, Reuters reported. The move by Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter came ahead of an upcoming May 28 trial, the first in the U.S. to result from roughly 2,000 lawsuits seeking to hold manufacturers of painkillers responsible for contributing to the epidemic. Opioids were involved in a record 47,600 overdose deaths in 2017 in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hunter dropped the claims after announcing last week that OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP had along with the wealthy Sackler family who own it reached a $270 million settlement. The 2017 lawsuit accused the three companies of engaging in deceptive marketing that downplayed the addiction risk from opioids while overstating their benefits. The Sacklers were not defendants in the case. The companies deny wrongdoing. Hunter said he would continue to bring a public nuisance claim against J&J and Teva but was dropping five other claims, including that they violated the Oklahoma Medicaid False Claims Act.
