Schuyler County has received a settlement from pharmaceutical company Teva as part of an ongoing opioid lawsuit. The county attorney, Steven Getman, announced that the county would be receiving up to $116,000 paid over 17 yearly installments from Teva in exchange for releasing the company from the pending lawsuit that claimed it contributed to the opioid crisis in the Southern Tier. The settlement money can be used for a variety of purposes, including supporting police and first responders, treating opioid addiction, and funding social services and anti-drug efforts.
As part of the agreement, Teva will be subject to several restrictions, including a ban on high-dose opioids and prescription savings programs, prohibitions on marketing opioids and funding third parties that promote opioids, restrictions on political lobbying, and disclosure of Teva opioid product clinical data.
The lawsuit, which was filed by Schuyler County in 2018 against 30 defendants, including Teva, alleged that the companies “had long known that opioids were addictive and subject to abuse” but still “spent hundreds of millions of dollars disseminating scientific materials and advertising that misrepresented the risks of opioids’ long-term use.”
This settlement is the latest in a series of opioid settlements that Schuyler County has received in the past five years. In 2021, the county received $121,000 from Johnson & Johnson and up to $546,000 from McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc., and Amerisource Bergen Drug Corp. In 2022, the county received $41,000 from Actavis Inc.
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