April 25 (Reuters) – Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA.O) and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (TEVA.TA) ignored the well being dangers after they created new markets for opioids, a lawyer for town of San Francisco informed a choose on Monday throughout opening statements of the primary trial to focus on producers, distributors and pharmacies over the addictive ache medicines.
Richard Heimann, a lawyer for town, stated on Monday that the prescription drug business was complicit in increasing the marketplace for opioids, whatever the public well being dangers.
Opioids beforehand had been restricted to be used in surgical procedure, most cancers therapy and end-of-life care, Heimann stated. However the pharmaceutical business made false claims concerning the medication’ security so as to market the medication to sufferers affected by widespread and continual situations like decrease again ache and arthritis, he stated.
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“The objective was to create a brand new market,” Heimann stated.
San Francisco has stated that pharmacy chain Walgreens, drugmakers Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (TEVA.TA) and AbbVie Inc’s (ABBV.N) Allergan unit, and drug distributor Anda Inc, which is owned by Teva, created a “public nuisance” by flooding town with prescription opioids and failing to stop the medication from being diverted for unlawful use.
The businesses have denied the allegations, saying that they bought opioid medicines that had been prescribed by docs. The defendants will make their opening statements within the case on Tuesday.
San Francisco has been hit exhausting by the opioid disaster, which has prompted greater than 500,000 overdose deaths nationwide previously twenty years, based on the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
San Francisco County obtained greater than 163 million prescription ache capsules from 2006 to 2014, which quantities to 22 capsules per resident per yr, based on town. Opioid-related well being points now account for 25% of emergency room visits on the metropolis’s largest public hospital, based on the lawsuit.
San Francisco’s lawsuit, filed in 2018, initially included claims in opposition to drugmakers Purdue Pharma LP, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) and Endo Worldwide Plc (ENDP.O) and the three largest U.S. drug distributors – McKesson Corp (MCK.N), Cardinal Well being Inc (CAH.N) and AmerisourceBergen Corp (ABC.N) – however the metropolis beforehand settled with these defendants.
In one among a wave of opioid settlements, J&J this month agreed to pay $99 million to settle claims over its half in West Virginia’s opioid disaster..
Alabama reached $276 million in settlements with J&J, McKesson and Endo after that state opted out of a nationwide $26 billion settlement of opioid litigation.
5 months in the past a California choose held that Los Angeles, Santa Clara, and Orange counties, in addition to town of Oakland, didn’t show that Endo, Johnson & Johnson, Teva and Allergan created a public nuisance by means of the sale and promotion of opioids ache medicines.
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Reporting by Dietrich Knauth in New York;
Modifying by Noeleen Walder, Invoice Berkrot, Howard Goller and Matthew Lewis
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