Attorney General: Iowa backs $48 billion settlement against drug makers, distributors, including Johnston & Johnston
Anna SpoerreIowa's attorney general has joined a group of his peers in support of a multi-billion dollar settlement against five companies involved in making and distributing opioids.
Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller on Tuesday said he supports a $48 billion settlement in the works against drug manufacturers Johnson & Johnson and Teva and distributors Cardinal Health, McKesson and AmerisourceBergen. All five approved of the settlement in principle, according to a news release.
“Many details need to be worked out, but this framework is an important step in addressing the crisis,” Miller said in Tuesday's release. “Any settlement must provide significant funds and treatment drugs to help people recover, as well as include requirements on the companies to prevent more addiction and death.”
Under the terms of the proposed settlement, the drug companies would pay $22.25 billion in cash, $18 billion of it over 18 years coming from the three distributors and $4 billion from Johnson & Johnson over the initial two to three years, USA Today reported earlier this week. Teva would pay $250 million over 10 years.
► Earlier this week:Iowa will receive a cut of $116 million settlement involving Johnson & Johnson, Ethicon
Teva also would contribute the lion’s share of the $26 billion non-cash component, with $23 billion in Suboxone treatment. The remaining $3 billion, from the distributors, would be used for distribution costs and setting up a clearinghouse.
If the settlement is approved, Iowa would receive a portion of the $22 billion in cash to be used in part toward addiction treatment, community paramedic services and drug courts, according to the Iowa Attorney General's statement. How that money would be distributed will be based off a formula that is still being developed.
Lynn Hicks, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said he isn't aware of a timeline yet on when a settlement might be finalized and when Iowa could receive money from it, but he said the attorney general's support of the settlement is a good first step at getting resources to people who need it, Hicks said.
Miller's involvement in the settlement was prompted by a historic lawsuit out of Ohio which was tentatively settled Monday just hours before it was supposed to go to trial, Hicks said.
The suit was filed by two Ohio counties in an attempt to regain damages from and develop recovery programs for those affected by highly addictive painkillers, according to USA Today.
Later Monday, some state attorneys general who had been negotiating a global deal with the drug companies announced the framework of a settlement that Miller has since approved.
Miller, as part of a bipartisan group of attorneys general, helped launch an investigation in the hopes of finding out whether the distributors named in the settlement followed the law and raised red flags about pharmacies’ suspicious drug orders and whether the manufacturers misled patients and doctors were misled about the addictive nature of opioid drugs, according to Miller's news release.
The Iowa Attorney General's office is also involved in a pending multi-state lawsuit against Purdue Pharma and it's former chairman, Richard Sackler, accused of fueling America's deadly opioid epidemic.
That case was transferred to bankruptcy court earlier this fall.
“We will continue to work to hold Purdue and the Sackler family accountable,” Miller said in Tuesday's release. “Meanwhile, the settlement with the other companies offers the opportunity to begin getting resources to Iowans who have suffered due to the opioid crisis.”
Anna Spoerre covers crime and courts for the Des Moines Register. She can be contacted at aspoerre@dmreg.com, 515-284-8387 or on Twitter at @annaspoerre.
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