Walmart announced a plan Tuesday to settle lawsuits filed by state and local governments over opioid sales at its pharmacies. The $3.1 billion proposal follows similar announcements CVS Health and Walgreen Co.
Nam Y. Huh / AP
Retail giant Walmart on Tuesday become the latest major player in the drug industry to announce a plan to settle lawsuits filed by state and local governments over the toll of powerful prescription opioids sold at its pharmacies with state and local governments across the U.S.
The $3.1 billion proposal follows similar announcements Nov. 2 from the two largest U.S. pharmacy chains, CVS Health and Walgreen Co., which each said they would pay about $5 billion.
Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart said in a statement that it "strongly disputes" allegations in lawsuits from state and local governments that its pharmacies improperly filled prescriptions for the powerful prescription painkillers. The company does not admit liability with the settlement plan.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a release that the company would have to comply with oversight measures, prevent fraudulent prescriptions and flag suspicious ones.
Lawyers representing local governments said the company would pay most of the settlement over the next year if it is finalized.
The deals are the product of negotiations with a group of state attorneys general, but they are not final. The CVS and Walgreens deals would have to be accepted first by a critical mass of state and local governments before they are completed. Walmart's plan would have to be approved by 43 states. The formal process has not yet begun.
Kristina Edmunson, a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Justice, said the agency had been involved in the settlement discussions with Walmart and was likely to sign on, though the plan’s final details would have to be reviewed. Oregon is already due to receive hundreds of millions of dollars from prior settlements with opioid manufacturers and distributors.
In a statement Tuesday, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said this is the first settlement with state attorneys general involving opioids and a national pharmacy chain. She said similar settlements are expected to follow.
“We will never be able to bring back those whom we’ve lost to the tragic opioid epidemic that was fueled by greedy opioid drug manufacturers, distributors, and dispensers,” Rosenblum said. “But this settlement with Walmart— a major pharmacy chain—and impending national settlements with CVS and Walgreens are huge steps toward finally holding all the major players in this national tragedy accountable.”
The national pharmacies join some of the biggest drugmakers and drug distributors in settling complex lawsuits over their alleged roles in an opioid overdose epidemic that has been linked to more than 500,000 deaths in the U.S. over the past two decades.
The tally of proposed and finalized settlements in recent years is more than $50 billion, with most of that to be used by governments to combat the crisis.
In the 2000s, most fatal opioid overdoses involved prescription drugs such as OxyContin and generic oxycodone. After governments, doctors and companies took steps to make them harder to obtain, people addicted to the drugs increasingly turned to heroin, which proved more deadly.
In recent years, opioid deaths have soared to record levels around 80,000 a year. Most of those deaths involve illicitly produced version of the powerful lab-made drug fentanyl, which is appearing throughout the U.S. supply of illegal drugs.
OPB’s Kate Davidson contributed to this story