Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and Allergan are willing to pay more than $5 billion combined to resolve more than 3,500 lawsuits filed against them over highly-addictive opioid painkillers, according to three people familiar with settlement talks.
The two drugmakers, which are among about a dozen companies facing thousands of damage claims over the medications, have been in mediation talks with plaintiffs for more than a year, the people said. While Teva and Allergan indicated a willingness to settle, no formal offer has been made or finalised, and talks are continuing, according to the people.
It wasn’t clear how much each company would pay or over how many years, because they are still arguing with each other over an indemnity agreement Teva signed in 2016, the people said. That year, Teva paid more than $40 billion to buy Allergan’s line of generic opioid-based medicines, which Allergan claims shifted all its costs for generic opioids to Teva, the people said.
Teva, based in Israel, declined to comment on the settlement talks. Allergan, which is domiciled in Ireland and is a unit of AbbVie, didn’t return emails or phone calls seeking comment.
Earlier this year, Teva chief executive Kare Schultz said his company was prepared to pay as much as $3.6 billion in cash and donated drugs to resolve its opioid exposure. In a securities filing earlier this month, Teva said it paid $1.1 billion in the first quarter for settlements and costs tied to the nationwide opioid litigation.
In the first five months of this year, Teva settled with four US states, agreeing to total payments of $378 million in cash over 13 to 18 years, the filing shows. The company also agreed to hand over opioid-overdose drugs it valued at more than $240 million to the states as part of those accords.
Both Teva and Allergan have been sued by states, local governments and Native American tribes. Many of those cases have been consolidated before a federal judge in Cleveland.
The plaintiffs are seeking compensation for billions of tax dollars spent battling the opioid epidemic, which has claimed more than 500,000 lives in the US over the past 20 years. States, cities and counties have secured commitments for more than $32 billion from companies to beef up budgets for police, drug-treatment and other social services. – Bloomberg
