State reviewing $26 billion settlement offer on opioids

A bipartisan group of state attorneys general revealed a $26 billion national settlement this week with drugmaker Johnson & Johnson and three companies that distributed opioid painkillers. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Michigan could see up to $800 million of the grand total. Nessel has 30 days to review the documents and decide to sign on to the settlement. After that, local units of government will have 150 days to do the same.

Details released at this point are as follows:

Funding overview

• The three distributors collectively will pay up to $21 billion over 18 years.  
• Johnson & Johnson will pay up to $5 billion over nine years with up to $3.7 billion paid during the first three years.   
• The total funding distributed will be determined by the overall degree of participation by both litigating and non-litigating state and local governments.  
• The substantial majority of the money is to be spent on opioid treatment and prevention.  
• Each state’s share of the funding has been determined by agreement among the states using a formula that takes into account the population of the state along with the impact of the crisis on the state – the number of overdose deaths, the number of residents with substance use disorder, and the number of opioids prescribed.  

Injunctive relief overview

Requires Cardinal, McKesson and AmerisourceBergen, through court orders, to: 

• Establish a centralized independent clearinghouse to provide all three distributors and state regulators with aggregated data and analytics about where drugs are going and how often, eliminating blind spots in the current systems used by distributors.  
• Use data-driven systems to detect suspicious opioid orders from customer pharmacies. 
• Terminate customer pharmacies’ ability to receive shipments, and report those companies to state regulators, when they show certain signs of diversion. 
• Prohibit shipping of and report suspicious opioid orders.  
• Prohibit sales staff from influencing decisions related to identifying suspicious opioid orders. 
• Require senior corporate officials to engage in regular oversight of anti-diversion efforts. 

Requires Johnson & Johnson, through court orders, to:  

• Stop selling opioids.   
• Not fund or provide grants to third parties for promoting opioids.  
• Not lobby on activities related to opioids.  
• Share clinical trial data under the Yale University Open Data Access Project. 

While this has been a long-awaited settlement, there is still much in the process to come. MAC will continue to be a resource for counties as needed regarding this matter. Please reach out to Meghann Keit-Corrion at keit@micounties.org with any questions.