Endo Pharmaceuticals plans to settle all lawsuits against its prescription opioid Opana painkiller in a separate track, hoping to put a cap on its legal exposure. The Dublin-based manufacturer is attempting to resolve by the end of the year more than 1,000 lawsuits filed against them by state attorneys general and private, representing cities and counties. Though Endo's opioid settlement negotiations are in the early stage, it might get the early-bird advantage of settling for lesser settlement amount by making the first-move among several other defendants in the litigation.
The opioid crisis has taken the lives of several individuals across the U.S. who got addicted to taking the painkiller more than the prescribed times. All the lawsuits filed against the drug makers claim that the drugs were responsible for addiction often prompting an individual to resort to criminal activities to steal and pay for the drug. Other companies who face a failure to warn allegation and illegal marketing charges include Johnson & Johnson (and its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals), Allergan, Purdue Pharma L, McKesson Corporation and several others. More than 400 opioid-related lawsuits are centralized as a part of multidistrict litigation, MDL No. 2804 (In Re: National Prescription Opiate Litigation) in the Northern District of Ohio before U.S. District Judge Dan A. Polster. The first bellwether trial in the litigation has been scheduled for September 3, 2019.
