New York City Sues Companies Over Opioid Abuse
January 23 2018 - 02:46PM
Dow Jones News
By Corinne Ramey and Sara Randazzo
New York City has filed a lawsuit against opioid manufacturers
and distributors, accusing the companies of oversupplying the
market and misrepresenting the safety of the drugs, Mayor Bill de
Blasio said Tuesday.
The lawsuit, filed in New York State Supreme Court, seeks half a
billion dollars that city officials say they need to fight the
opioid epidemic.
"More New Yorkers have died from opioid overdoses than car
crashes and homicides combined in recent years," Mr. de Blasio, a
Democrat, said in a statement. "Big Pharma helped to fuel this
epidemic by deceptively peddling these dangerous drugs and hooking
millions of Americans in exchange for profit."
Five opioid manufacturers and their subsidiaries, including
Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson and Endo International, as
well as distributors McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc. and
AmerisourceBergen Corp., were named in the lawsuit.
New York City's move follows a wave of similar lawsuits brought
by 15 states and about 300 other cities and counties in the
U.S.
The companies have denied the allegations and said they are
committed to working with communities to stem opioid abuse.
Purdue reiterated Tuesday that it is "deeply troubled by the
prescription and illicit opioid-abuse crisis, and are dedicated to
being part of the solution."
Endo said it has stopped promoting and developing opioids, and
eliminated its product sales force, as well as withdrawing its drug
Opana at the request of the Food and Drug Administration.
McKesson said it reports hundreds of thousands of suspicious
orders to federal authorities each year and that "this complicated,
multi-faceted public-health crisis cannot be solved by any one
participant," but needs to come from a comprehensive approach
involving everyone from doctors to insurance companies to
distributors and manufacturers.
More than 1,000 people in New York City died in a drug overdose
which involved an opioid during 2016, city officials said. Costs to
the city have included those related to treatment, hospitals,
criminal justice and law enforcement, officials said.
Opioids killed more than 42,000 people in the U.S. in 2016,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Forty
percent of opioid overdoses in 2016 involved a prescription opioid,
the CDC said.
Earlier this week, Kentucky filed a lawsuit against McKesson,
claiming the distributor flooded the state with opioids, including
the generic versions of oxycodone and hydrocodone. Kentucky
Attorney General Andy Beshear, a Democrat, also sued Endo last
year.
Delaware sued manufacturers, distributors and pharmacies in
state court there on Friday, saying the volume of opioids shipped
to Delaware annually amounts to more than 50 opioid pills for each
resident.
Hundreds of the suits filed in federal court have been
consolidated in front of U.S. District Judge Dan Polster in Ohio.
Judge Polster is pushing for early settlement talks and has
encouraged state attorneys general that have filed suits to attend
a meeting in his court at the end of the month.
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, a Republican who filed one of
the first major opioid cases this past summer, has said he has
begun settlement talks with some opioid manufacturers.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 23, 2018 14:31 ET (19:31 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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