Four drugmakers
are set to face trial on Monday in a lawsuit by several large counties in
California that are seeking more than $50 billion over claims the companies
helped fuel an opioid epidemic by deceptively marketing addictive painkillers.
اضافة اعلان
The case
against
Johnson & Johnson,
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, Endo
International PLC and AbbVie’s Allergan unit is one of the thousands of
lawsuits by states and local governments seeking to hold pharmaceutical
companies responsible for the drug crisis.
Opioids have
resulted in the overdose deaths of nearly 500,000 people from 1999 to 2019 in
the United States, according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The populous
Santa Clara, Los Angeles and Orange counties and the city of Oakland accuse the
companies of deceptively marketing painkillers in ways that downplayed their
addictive risks. The drugmakers argue they acted appropriately and that they
did not cause the epidemic.
If Orange
County Superior Court Judge Peter Wilson finds the companies liable following a
non-jury trial, the counties say the companies should have to pay $50 billion
to cover the costs of abating the public nuisance they created plus penalties.
More than 3,400
similar lawsuits are pending nationally over the opioid epidemic. The only
other case to go to trial in the opioid litigation resulted in the state of
Oklahoma in 2019 winning a $465 million judgment against J&J, which is
appealing.
Other cases are
slated to go to trial in the coming months, creating new pressure for the
companies to reach settlements.
The nation’s
three largest drug distributors — McKesson Corp , AmerisourceBergen Corp and
Cardinal Health Inc - and J&J have proposed paying a combined $26 billion
to resolve the cases against them. The proposed deal has not been finalized.
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