Companies / Healthcare Israeli drugmaker Teva to pay Oklahoma $85m in opioid suit Pharmaceutical titan Johnson & Johnson is set to go on trial in the state on Tuesday after declining to settle BL PREMIUM

Washington — Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva has agreed to pay the US state of Oklahoma $85m to settle a lawsuit, accusing it of fuelling the state’s opioid epidemic, Oklahoma’s attorney-general said. The announcement comes after Purdue Pharma, maker of the opioid painkiller OxyContin — a key driver of the crisis responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in the US — reached a $270m settlement with the state in March. Attorney-general Mike Hunter said in a statement on Sunday the Teva settlement shows Oklahoma’s “resolve to hold the defendants in this case accountable for the ongoing opioid overdose and addiction epidemic that continues to claim thousands of lives each year”. The money will be used by the mid-western state to fight the opioid crisis, Hunter said, with an announcement of how exactly it will be spent to be made in the future. Meanwhile, another pharmaceutical titan, Johnson & Johnson, is set to go on trial in Oklahoma on Tuesday, with the company facing similar acc...