J&J to pay US$590mil to settle U.S. tribes' opioid claims

J&J agreed to pay US$150 million over two years, according to a court filing in federal court in Cleveland, Ohio, funds the drugmaker said will be deducted from its $5 billion portion of the $26 billion settlement.

The three largest U.S. drug distributors and drugmaker Johnson & Johnson have agreed to pay $590 million to resolve claims by hundreds of Native American tribes that the companies fueled an opioid epidemic in their communities.

Tuesday's deal came after the distributors, McKesson Corp, AmerisourceBergen Corp and Cardinal Health Inc, along with J&J last year proposed paying up to $26 billion to resolve similar claims by states and local governments.

That proposed settlement, though, did not resolve lawsuits and potential claims by the country's 574 federally recognized Native American tribes and Alaska Native villages, which experienced disproportionately high rates of opioid overdoses.

Under Tuesday's settlement, the three distributors will pay nearly $440 million over seven years. That is on top a $75 million settlement they reached in September with the Cherokee Nation.

J&J agreed to pay $150 million over two years, according to a court filing in federal court in Cleveland, Ohio, funds the drugmaker said will be deducted from its $5 billion portion of the $26 billion settlement.- Reuters