Landry’s
bipartisan coalition brings total
recoveries from drug industry to more than $50 billion
BATON
ROUGE, LA –
Louisiana Attorney
General Jeff Landry today announced that he has finalized agreements with CVS
and Walgreens to bring the national amount from investigations and litigation
against the pharmaceutical industry for its role in the opioid crisis to more
than $50 billion. Under today's agreements, CVS will pay $5 billion and
Walgreens will pay $5.7 billion.
“Today is another step forward
in our fight to combat the opioid crisis,” said Attorney General Landry who
helped lead the negotiations along with the attorneys general of California,
Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky,
Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode
Island, Tennessee, and Texas.
“Across
our State, too many families and friends have
been broken by the opioid epidemic,” continued Attorney General Landry. “While
we can never bring back their loved ones who died, we can and will continue to
hold accountable those that created and fueled this crisis – forcing them to
pay for treatment and prevention in our communities.”
In
addition to the financial settlement, CVS and Walgreens have agreed to
court-ordered injunctive relief that requires the pharmacies to monitor,
report, and share data about suspicious activity related to opioid
prescriptions. This court-ordered injunctive relief will help ensure a crisis
like this does not happen again.
The
terms of this agreement will now go to the states for their review. Each state
will have until the end of 2022 to join, after which the agreements will go to
local governments around the country for sign-on during the first quarter of
2023. Nearly all of the settlement funds must be used to remediate the opioid
crisis, including prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery
services.
The
payments are structured to ensure critical support in early years as well as
sustained resources over time. CVS’s payments will be spread over 10 years, and Walgreens’ payments will be
spread over 15 years. If there is
sufficient sign-on, payments will begin during the second half of 2023.