The holding firm which owns Boots has agreed to pay $500m (£400m) to New Mexico to settle claims its pharmacies helped gasoline opioid dependancy, attorneys for the state have mentioned.
The settlement, the biggest obtained by New Mexico towards a single firm over opioids, got here after a non-jury trial final yr within the state’s lawsuit towards the corporate.
The choose overseeing that trial had not but dominated on the state’s claims that Walgreen Boots Alliance fuelled opioid dependancy by failing to cease unlawful tablet gross sales.
Mark Pifko, a lawyer for the state, has mentioned in an announcement: “We are confident that this record settlement positions New
Mexico to turn the tide on this deadly epidemic.”
New Mexico has now settled all of its main opioid-related lawsuits, recovering greater than $1bn (round £800m) together with Friday’s deal, Mr Pifko mentioned.
Walgreens Boots Alliance didn’t admit wrongdoing within the settlement.
The American-British-Swiss holding firm headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois, owns the retail pharmacy chains Walgreens within the US and Boots within the UK.
More than half 1,000,000 individuals died from drug overdoses within the United States from 1999 to 2020, with opioids answerable for a considerable amount of the deaths.
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Overdose deaths have risen additional since then, based on information from the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
New Mexico’s lawsuit towards Walgreens was one among greater than 3,300 filed by state and native governments accusing pharmacies and distributors of ignoring crimson flags that opioids had been being diverted to the black market.
The lawsuits have additionally accused drugmakers of downplaying the dangers of the addictive ache medication.
The litigation, now winding down, has resulted in additional than $50bn (round £40bn) in settlements, together with a $5.7bn (£4.5bn) nationwide deal between states and Walgreens by which New Mexico didn’t participate.
Source: information.sky.com”