Rhode Island reaches $107 million opioid settlements with Teva and
Allergan
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[March 22, 2022]
By Dietrich Knauth and Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) -Rhode Island's attorney general
on Monday announced settlements he valued at $107 million against the
drugmakers Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and AbbVie's Allergan unit to
resolve claims over their roles in fueling an opioid epidemic in the
state.
Attorney General Peter Neronha said the settlements include $28.5
million in cash, plus the delivery to Rhode Island of anti-overdose
treatments - 1 million Naloxone sprays and 67,000 bottles of Suboxone
pills - over 10 years.
"While no amount of money will ever be enough to undo the harm suffered
by Rhode Islanders throughout the ongoing opioid epidemic, these
additional recoveries will further support public health efforts to
respond to the challenges," Neronha said.
Israel-based Teva, the world's largest generic drug company, called its
settlement "a critical step forward in getting life-saving treatments to
the people who need them."
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Mar/22/images/ads/current/burtonview_daily_sda_SFARM_2022.png)
It said it was still "actively" negotiating a national settlement. Teva
Chief Executive Kåre Schultz told Reuters last month the company will
likely end up paying $2.7 billion to $3.6 billion in cash and drugs to
settle all U.S. state and local government claims.
AbbVie, which acquired Allergan in 2020, did not immediately respond to
a request for comment.
The settlement was reached just as Rhode Island was prepared to take
Teva to trial. Jury selection began last week, and opening arguments
were set to begin on Monday.
The Rhode Island lawsuit is one of more than 3,300 filed by state, local
and Native American tribal governments across the country accusing
drugmakers of minimizing the addiction risks of opioid pain medications.
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![](../images/032222PIX/news_m25.jpg)
Tablets of the opioid-based Hydrocodone at a pharmacy in Portsmouth,
Ohio, June 21, 2017. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston/File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Mar/22/images/ads/current/goodman_sda_SFARM_2022.png) More than 500,000 people have died
due to opioid overdoses in the past two decades, according to the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Rhode Island valued Teva's contributed medicines at $78.5 million.
The company reached a similar $225 million settlement recently with
Texas which included $75 million in contributed drugs.
Concerns about the value of those drugs have been a sticking point
in Teva's attempt to reach nationwide settlement agreement. Hunter
Shkolnik, a lawyer who represents opioid plaintiffs in other cases,
called the use of the list price a "smoke and mirrors" technique
that artificially inflates the settlement's value.
Vincent Greene, an attorney who represented Rhode Island in the Teva
case, said the inclusion of treatment drugs will "save lives
immediately and in the years to come." Rhode Island has reached
all-cash settlements from other defendants, giving the state more
flexibility to accept non-cash contributions from Teva, Greene
added.
Other defendants in the Rhode Island case settled long before the
trial, including the largest U.S. drug distributors McKesson Corp,
AmerisourceBergen Corp and Cardinal Health Inc <CAH.N>. Those three
companies joined a nationwide $21 billion settlement.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel and Dietrich Knauth in New York, Tom
Hals in Wilmington, Delaware, and Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by
Chris Reese, Bill Berkrot and David Gregorio)
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