The three largest U.S. drug distributors and drugmaker Johnson & Johnson have agreed to finalize a proposed $26 billion settlement resolving claims by states and local governments that they helped fuel the U.S. opioid epidemic, Reuters reported. Distributors McKesson Corp., AmerisourceBergen Corp., Cardinal Health Inc. along with J&J had until Friday to decide whether enough cities and counties nationally had opted to join the landmark settlement to justify moving forward with it. The deal aims to resolve more than 3,000 lawsuits largely by state and local governments seeking to hold the companies responsible for an opioid abuse crisis that has led to hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths over the last two decades. The distributors said today that there was "sufficient participation" to proceed. Charles Lifland, an attorney for J&J, in a letter yesterday reviewed by Reuters told lawyers for the states and local governments it also had determined there had been a "sufficient resolution" of the claims. The announcement paves the way for the companies to begin making payments to the governments in April, money that officials say will be used to fund treatment and other programs aimed at addressing the health crisis.
