Jackie Fortier, StateImpact Oklahoma<\/p>\n
All eyes were on Oklahoma last week, when the first case in a flood of litigation against opioid drug manufacturers began Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter\u2019s suit alleges Johnson & Johnson, the nation\u2019s largest drugmaker, helped ignite a public health crisis that has killed thousands of state residents.<\/p>\n
With just two days to go before the trial, one of the remaining defendants, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries of Jerusalem, announced an $85 million settlement<\/a> with the state on Sunday. The money will be used for litigation costs and an undisclosed amount will be allocated \u201cto abate the opioid crisis in Oklahoma,\u201d according to a press release from Hunter\u2019s office.<\/p>\n In its own statement<\/a>, Teva said the settlement does not establish any wrongdoing on the part of the company, adding Teva \u201chas not contributed to the abuse of opioids in Oklahoma in any way.\u201d<\/p>\n That leaves Johnson & Johnson as the sole defendant.<\/p>\n Court filings accuse the company of overstating the benefits of opioids and understating their risks in marketing campaigns that duped doctors into prescribing the drugs for ailments not approved by regulators.<\/p>\n The bench trial \u2014 with a judge and no jury \u2014 is poised to be the first of its kind to play out in court.<\/p>\n Nora Freeman Engstrom<\/a>, a professor at Stanford Law school, said lawyers in the other cases and the general public are eager to see what proof Hunter\u2019s office offers the court.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll all be seeing what evidence is available, what evidence isn\u2019t available and just how convincing that evidence is,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Most states and more than 1,600 local and tribal governments are suing drugmakers and distributors. They are trying to recoup billions of dollars spent on addressing the fallout tied to opioid addiction.<\/p>\n Initially, Hunter\u2019s lawsuit included Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin. In March, Purdue Pharma settled<\/a> with the state for $270 million. Soon after, Hunter dropped all but one of the civil claims<\/a>, including fraud, against the remaining defendants. Teva settled for $85 million in May, leaving Johnson & Johnson as the only opioid manufacturer willing to go to trial with the state.<\/p>\n But he still thinks the case is strong.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have looked at literally millions of documents, taken hundreds of depositions, and we are even more convinced that these companies are the proximate cause for the epidemic in our state and in our country,\u201d Hunter said.<\/p>\n The companies involved have a broad concern about what their liability might be, said University of Kentucky law professor Richard Ausness.<\/p>\n \u201cThis case will set a precedent,\u201d he said. \u201cIf Oklahoma loses, of course they\u2019ll appeal if they lose, but the defendants may have to reconsider their strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n With hundreds of similar cases pending \u2014 especially a mammoth case pending in Ohio \u2014 Oklahoma\u2019s strategy will be closely watched.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd of course lurking in the background is the multi-state litigation in Cleveland, where there will ultimately be a settlement in all likelihood, but the size of the settlement and the terms of the settlement may be influenced by Oklahoma,\u201d Ausness said.<\/p>\n The legal case is complicated. Unlike tobacco, where states won a landmark settlement<\/a>, Ausness pointed out that opioids serve a medical purpose.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s nothing wrong with producing opioids. It\u2019s regulated and approved by the Federal Drug Administration, the sale is overseen by the Drug Enforcement Administration, so there\u2019s a great deal of regulation in the production and distribution and sale of opioid products,\u201d Ausness said. \u201cThey are useful products, so this is not a situation where the product is defective in some way.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s an argument that has found some traction in court. Recently, a North Dakota judge dismissed all of that state\u2019s claims against Purdue, a big court win for the company. In a written ruling that the state says it will appeal, Judge James Hill questioned the idea of blaming a company that makes a legal product for opioid-related deaths. \u201cPurdue cannot control how doctors prescribe its products and it certainly cannot control how individual patients use and respond to its products,\u201d the judge wrote, \u201cregardless of any warning or instruction Purdue may give.\u201d<\/p>\n Now the Oklahoma case rests entirely on a claim of public nuisance, which refers to actions that harm members of the public, including injury to public health.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s sexy you know, \u2018public nuisance\u2019 makes it sound like the defendants are really bad,\u201d Ausness said.<\/p>\n If the state\u2019s claim prevails, Big Pharma could be forced to spend billions of dollars in Oklahoma helping ease the epidemic. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t diminish the amount of damages we believe we\u2019ll be able to justify to the judge,\u201d Hunter said, estimating a final payout could run into the \u201cbillions of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n Hunter\u2019s decision to go it alone and not join with a larger consolidated case could mean a quicker resolution for the state, Ausness said.<\/p>\n \u201cParticularly when we\u2019re talking about [attorneys general], who are politicians, who want to be able to tell the people, \u2018Gee this is what I\u2019ve done for you.\u2019 They are not interested in waiting two or three years [for a settlement], they want it now,\u201d he said. \u201cOf course, the risk of that is you may lose.\u201d<\/p>\n Oklahoma has the second-highest uninsured rate in the nation and little money for public health. The state is trying to win money from the drug companies to pay for treatment for people like Greg, who is afraid he\u2019ll lose his job if we use his last name.<\/p>\n Greg and his wife, Judy, said they haven\u2019t been able to find the integrated treatment that Greg needs for both his opioid addiction and his bipolar disorder. It\u2019s either one or the other.<\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t give you \u2026 a treatment plan for both,\u201d Judy said. \u201cThey just say \u2018Here, you can talk to this person.\u2019 They don\u2019t recognize that it\u2019s like self-medicating.\u201d<\/p>\n The couple live in Guthrie, Okla., about an hour north of the courthouse where the opioid trial will take place. Greg said he has been addicted to opioids for 11 years. People with prescriptions sell him their pills \u2014 sometimes Greg binges and takes 400 milligrams of morphine at once, a huge dose.<\/p>\n Of the $270 million Purdue settlement, $200 million is earmarked for an addiction research and treatment center in Tulsa, though no details have been released. An undisclosed amount of the $85 million Teva settlement will also go to abating the crisis. Judy said she hopes the treatment center will eventually help Greg.<\/p>\n \u201cI wish he would stop using [opioids], but I love him. I\u2019ll always be here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n This story is part of a partnership that includes StateImpact Oklahoma<\/a>, NPR<\/a> and Kaiser Health News.<\/p>\n Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" All eyes were on Oklahoma last week, when the first case in a flood of litigation against opioid drug manufacturers began Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8,7,6,5],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.pharmadiversityjobboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.pharmadiversityjobboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.pharmadiversityjobboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.pharmadiversityjobboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.pharmadiversityjobboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.pharmadiversityjobboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34,"href":"https:\/\/blog.pharmadiversityjobboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions\/34"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.pharmadiversityjobboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.pharmadiversityjobboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.pharmadiversityjobboard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Precedent-Setting Case<\/h3>\n
\u2018There\u2019s Nothing Wrong with Producing Opioids\u201d<\/h3>\n
Looking For Treatment<\/h3>\n
\n