par Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. pharmaceutical group Johnson & Johnson (J&J) said on Saturday it had agreed to pay $ 263 million to end proceedings accusing it of fueling an opioid epidemic in the state of New York and two of its counties.
With this agreement, J&J is spared a trial which was to begin Tuesday in Long Island, a trial where manufacturers and distributors of opioids were also scheduled to appear.
The pharmaceutical group has not admitted its responsibility or its wrongs in this case but has agreed to stop selling opioids across the country.
“The opioid epidemic has taken its toll” across the country, Letitia James, the New York state attorney general, said in a statement.
“Johnson & Johnson helped fuel this fire,” she added.
Letitia James said her goal remains to “get funds to communities devastated by opioids as quickly as possible.”
According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 500,000 people died from opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2019.
(Report Jonathan Stempel, French version Matthieu Protard)
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