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 The suit, filed by Attorney General Mike DeWine, comes as a growing
number of state and local governments are suing drugmakers and
distributors, seeking to hold them accountable for a deadly and
costly opioid crisis.
Opioid drugs, including prescription painkillers and heroin, killed
more than 33,000 people in the United States in 2015, more than any
year on record, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention.
The five companies Ohio sued were Purdue Pharma LP, Johnson &
Johnson's Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc unit, a unit of Endo
International Plc, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd's Cephalon
unit and Allergan Plc.
DeWine said the companies helped unleash the crisis by spending
millions of dollars marketing and promoting such drugs as OxyContin
and Percocet, overstating their benefits and trivializing their
potential addictive qualities.
"These companies continue to mislead the public," DeWine said at a
press conference in Columbus.
Janssen spokesman Jessica Castles Smith said in an emailed
statement: "The allegations in this lawsuit are both legally and
factually unfounded."
She said Janssen has acted responsibly regarding its opioid pain
medications, which are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration and carry FDA-mandated warnings on their labels about
the drugs' known risks.
Purdue said in an emailed statement: "We share the attorney
general's concerns about the opioid crisis and we are committed to
working collaboratively to find solutions."
Allergan and Teva declined to comment. Endo could not immediately be
reached.
The suit, filed in Ross County, in Southern Ohio, where addiction
has hit hard, alleges the drug companies violated the Ohio Consumer
Sales Practices Act, committed Medicaid fraud, and created a public
nuisance by disseminating false and misleading statements.
It seeks to halt deceptive practices, a declaration the companies
acted illegally and unspecified damages to the state and consumers.
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In Ohio, which has one of the nation's highest overdose rates, 4,169
people died from overdoses last year, according to figures compiled
by the Columbus Dispatch.
Last year, 2.3 million Ohio residents were prescribed opioids,
nearly a fifth of the state's population, in turn helping fuel
heroin abuse, DeWine said.
Drug companies including Purdue and Johnson & Johnson have been
fighting lawsuits by two California counties, the city of Chicago,
four counties in New York and the state of Mississippi over their
opioid marketing practices.
Several West Virginia counties have filed lawsuits in recent months
against drug wholesalers McKesson Corp, Cardinal Health and
AmerisourceBergen for failing to report suspicious orders of opioids
in the state.
West Virginia's attorney general earlier reached settlements with
Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen for a combined $36 million to
resolve similar claims.
(Reporting by Chris Kenning in Chicago; Additional reporting by Nate
Raymond in Boston; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and James Dalgleish)
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