New York creates fund to house fines for opiate manufacturers

New York, Jun 30 (EFE) .- The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, signed a law this Wednesday that will create a specific fund to house the potential fines paid by pharmaceutical companies accused of contributing to the opiate crisis in the condition.
The law has received the support of Democrats and Republicans in the New York legislative chambers and also that of Attorney General Letitia James, who has promoted an expected mega-trial that began yesterday against firms such as Teva, Endo and Abbvie, among others.
The fund, James explained in a note, will house the money resulting from “settlements or rulings in litigation against opioid manufacturers, distributors, dispensers, consultants or sellers” to be used for “prevention, education and treatment programs.”
According to James, New York “today has taken a great step” to end the opioid epidemic and offer justice to its victims by creating this fund, which guarantees that this money “does not supplant or replace” that already allocated by the state administration. to those causes.
The process that is underway is the first due to the opioid crisis whose outcome will be in the hands of a jury and, unlike others, includes the entire chain of production and supply of drugs to which hundreds of thousands are held responsible. deaths and addiction cases in recent years
James has brought to the bench, among other names, manufacturers Teva, Endo International and Abbvie, along with distribution companies such as Cardinal Health, McKesson and AmerisourceBergen.
The multinational Johnson & Johnson (J&J), which was among the defendants, agreed this weekend to pay 230 million dollars over several years and leave the opiate business in the United States to get rid of the process.
However, the company will now have to pay a large part of that fine in the first year due to the approval of the law that creates the fund, as stipulated in its agreement.
Other defendants, such as Purdue Pharma, maker of the addictive drug OxyContin, will also not participate, having filed for bankruptcy after thousands of opioid lawsuits against them.
Meanwhile, several drug store chains such as CVS, Rite Aid and Walmart were also originally in the case, but they have ended up falling, with CVS reaching a settlement with prosecutors and no information on the other two.

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