5 Key Details As Drugmakers Face $50B Opioid Trial In Calif.
Jeff Overley, Cara Salvatore and Emily Field, 16 April 2021
Barring last-minute settlements, Johnson & Johnson, Endo Pharmaceuticals and other major drugmakers are poised to go to trial Monday against some of California’s largest counties, which are seeking $50 billion in one of the nation’s oldest opioid-crisis cases.
The West Coast clash centers on now-familiar allegations that pharmaceutical manufacturers — divisions of J&J, Endo, Teva Pharmaceuticals and Allergan PLC — to varying degrees bankrolled pernicious promotional campaigns for prescription painkillers, unleashing a devastating wave of drug dependence and death.
But the Golden State also gives drugmakers a golden opportunity to offer a little-explored defense — that the primary premise of opioid litigation is flawed in many regions, including California, where opioid overdoses have long occurred at relatively low rates.
