Drugmaker Endo Reaches $63M Settlement With Texas to End Opioid Lawsuits

Endo Settlement Overview:

• Who: Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. has reached a $63 million settlement with the state of Texas.
• What: The state accused the drugmaker of deceptively marketing its highly addictive painkiller pills, resulting in an epidemic that caused devastation across the state.
• Where: The settlement was reached in Texas federal court.

Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc. has reached a $63 million settlement with the state of Texas to end claims it deceptively marketed its highly addictive painkiller pills, resulting in an epidemic that caused devastation across the state.

Texas’s Attorney General Ken Paxton said the settlement was a necessary step in the right direction, adding that he would continue to fight to heal the state from the devastating opioid crisis, Law360 reports.

“This settlement is the result of my office aggressively working to hold opioid manufacturers accountable for their deceptive marketing of highly addictive pain pills, which spurred an epidemic and left victims and families with unimaginable consequences,” Paxton told Law360.

The settlement closes out two cases Paxton brought against Endo subsidiaries, which were scheduled to go to trial in Texas in 2022, but the company said in a statement the deal includes no admission of wrongdoing or liability.

According to Law360, Endo’s primary goal is still a global opioid settlement, but the company has said that it is looking into “strategic alternatives” if a global deal can’t be attained.

The deal with Texas is the latest the company has made with various states after a scandal was uncovered where it was found to be hiding evidence during discovery.

Endo Also Settled With Tennessee For $35M

According to Law360, a Tennessee state judge found in April that Endo was liable by default for holding back documents to get an advantage at trials, and the company and its lawyers from Arnold & Porter were held in contempt with the lawyers accused of making false statements. Following the ruling, Tennessee has reached a $35 million settlement with the drugmaker.

New York reached a $50 million settlement after a similar ruling where Arnold & Porter lawyers were accused of hiding “damning evidence” of improper marketing involving narcotic painkillers, Law360 reports.

As part of the settlement, New York state and Nassau and Suffolk counties will split $27.7 million down the middle while the state will receive $22.3 million.

In December, a jury found Teva Pharmaceuticals, an opioid manufacturer and distributor, guilty of inundating New York with prescription painkillers that led to thousands of deaths and contributed to the deadly opioid crisis in New York, according to The New York Times. The case was just the second opioid-related lawsuit in the country to reach a jury verdict.

Meanwhile, thousands of other opioid-related lawsuits are playing out across the country, including one in Washington filed by the state against drug distributors McKesson Corp, AmerisourceBergen Corp., and Cardinal Health Inc.

The November lawsuit accuses the drug distributors of greenlighting millions of suspicious orders of narcotic painkillers and thus willfully contributing to and profiting from the state’s opioid crisis.

Led by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson seeks a remedy of $38.2 billion towards the abatement of the opioid epidemic’s public health and safety harms and of up to $7,500 per CPA violation, totaling around $95 billion.

Do you think drug manufacturers should be liable to pay damages for the pain caused by the opioid epidemic? Let us know in the comments section!

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