Drug distributors face off in opposition to West Virginia in billion-greenback opioid trial By Reuters
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A beefy syringe, empty syringe and spoon sit down on the roof of the auto in Lynn
By Brendan Pierson
(Reuters) – The three finest U.S. drug distributors, who are accused of serving to fuel the opioid disaster that has resulted in virtually 500,000 overdose deaths in the US, will defend themselves in a trial that kicks off on Monday.
The trial in opposition to AmerisourceBergen (NYSE:) Corp, McKesson Corp (NYSE:) and Cardinal Health Inc (NYSE:) in Charleston, West Virginia, involves a lawsuit attempting to earn bigger than $1 billion brought by town of Huntington and Cabell County.
They say the companies omitted crimson flags that opioids had been being diverted to illegal channels, flooding the sigh with a full bunch of thousands and thousands of highly addictive pills.
The distributors fill denied the claims, arguing they are able to’t be accountable for distributing pills that had been prescribed by doctors.
Huntington and Cabell, along with other West Virginia towns and counties, opted out of a proposed $26 billion nationwide settlement with the three distributors and drugmaker Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:).
A verdict in the trial may well perchance perchance reduction lay the groundwork for settlements in the sprawling nationwide litigation over the opioid disaster, which encompasses bigger than 3,300 complaints by local governments around the nation in opposition to opioid producers, distributors and pharmacies.
Opioids fill resulted in the overdose deaths of virtually 500,000 of us in the US from 1999 to 2019, in conserving with U.S. Services and products for Disease Control and Prevention. West Virginia is with out doubt one of many hardest hit states, recording more opioid prescriptions and overdose deaths per capita than every other in 2018, in conserving with data from the Nationwide Institutes of Health.
One other opioid trial is underway in a case brought by California counties in opposition to J&J and other drugmakers, and a trial in a case brought by New York counties is scheduled to birth subsequent month.
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