CVS, Walgreens, Walmart Settle Opioid Lawsuits: What It Means For VA

VIRGINIA — More money to fund overdose treatment programs and other responses to opioid abuse will soon be headed to Virginia under a tentative agreement Wednesday with CVS and Walgreens to pay about $10 billion to local, state and tribal governments to resolve thousands of lawsuits claiming their pharmacies mishandled prescriptions for opioid painkillers.

Walmart is still negotiating its deal, but Reuters reported the settlement under discussion was in the $4 billion range.

A majority of plaintiffs still must approve the settlements. Walgreens and CVS both agreed to pay about $5 billion each, and Walmart agreed to pay about $3.1 billion, Reuters and The New York Times reported.

The tentative agreements reached Wednesday could be the last after years of litigation over the drug industry’s role in the opioid overdose crisis that has been linked to more than 500,000 U.S. deaths since 1999, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Provisional CDC data for 2021 shows opioid overdose deaths increased from an estimated 70,029 in 2020 to 80,816 in 2021. Overdose deaths from synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, and psychostimulants such as methamphetamine and cocaine also continued to increase from 2020 to 2021.

More than 2,400 people in Virginia died of drug overdoses in from May 2021 to May 2022, according to the CDC, for an increase of 0.97 percent. Importantly, the data isn’t sorted by type of drug, but the CDC has said that 82 percent of overdose deaths involve synthetic opioids.

Large prescription opioid manufacturers and the three major drug distribution companies have already settled the lawsuits against them, but retail pharmacies have been slow to strike a deal with the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs argued the pharmacies should have flagged inappropriate prescriptions.

Virginia is expected to receive about $610 million from a $26 billion opioids settlement with the nation’s three major pharmaceutical distributors — Cardinal, McKesson, and AmerisourceBergen — and the drug maker Johnson & Johnson. That includes at least $80 million from OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. The settlements are being distributed according to a memorandum passed in 2021 by the Virginia General Assembly and coordinated by the office of Attorney General Jason Miyares.

Money from the settlement will support overdose-related programs across the state. The payments will be divided among state government, counties and cities, with a majority directed to a statewide body called the Opioid Abatement Authority, which will get at least $232 million over 16 years, state documents said. The authority was created to distribute settlement money through grants to state, local and regional abatement efforts.