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 Several pharmaceutical wholesale distributors, including Cardinal,
have been named as defendants in about 2,500 lawsuits for the
distribution of prescription opioid pain medications. These lawsuits
have been filed in various federal, state, and other courts by a
variety of plaintiffs.
Cardinal said in a filing it expects to be named as a defendant in
additional lawsuits.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors have been in part
blamed for the U.S. opioid crisis, accused of deceptively marketing
opioids in ways that downplayed their risks.
AmerisourceBergen Corp and McKesson Corp are also facing similar
lawsuits.
Cardinal said it was vigorously defending itself in all opioid-related
matters, but is unable to predict their outcome or estimate a range
of reasonably possible losses. (https://bit.ly/2KVe5ME)
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Cardinal said that ongoing negative publicity could hurt the its
reputation or results of operations.
Opioids were involved in 400,000 overdose deaths from 1999 to 2017,
according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
On Tuesday, drugmakers Endo International Plc and Allergan Plc
agreed to pay $15 million to avoid going to trial in October in a
landmark opioid-related case by two Ohio counties.
Earlier this month, Bloomberg News reported that McKesson, Cardinal
Health and AmerisourceBergen had proposed paying a $10 billion
settlement for claims that they played a part in the U.S. opioid
epidemic.
(Reporting by Arundhati Sarkar in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva,
Bernard Orr)
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