The West Virginia Attorney General, Patrick Morrisey, announced that McKesson Corp. has agreed to pay $37 million to resolve claims that the company fueled the opioid epidemic. The drug distributor will pay $14.5 million this year followed by five more annual payments of $4.5 million until 2024. This is believed to be one of the biggest settlements against a distributor. The lawsuit was filed in 2016 in a West Virginia circuit court which stated McKesson shipped millions of doses of both oxycodone and hydrocodone between 2007 and 2012 along with large amounts of other narcotics illegally. In 2017, McKesson agreed to pay a $150 million penalty to settle the violations of the Controlled Substances Act.
The recent West Virginia settlement follows the $270 million deal Purdue Pharma struck in March with the state of Oklahoma to exit the opioid lawsuit crisis. There are more than 1,600 cases over the opioid crisis, filed largely by local governments, Native American tribes, and hospitals. The first trial in the MDL No. 2804 is set to start in October 2019.
