Walgreens to pay up to $350 million in U.S. opioid settlement : NPR

Walgreens has agreed to pay as much as $350 million in a settlement with the U.S. Division of Justice, who accused the pharmacy of illegally filling thousands and thousands of prescriptions within the final decade for opioids and different managed substances.

The nationwide drugstore chain should pay the federal government no less than $300 million and can owe one other $50 million if the corporate is offered, merged, or transferred earlier than 2032, in response to the settlement reached final Friday.

The federal government’s criticism, filed in January within the U.S. District Courtroom for the Northern District of Illinois, alleges that Walgreens knowingly crammed thousands and thousands of unlawful prescriptions for managed substances between August 2012 and March 2023. These embody prescriptions for extreme opioids and prescriptions crammed considerably early.

“We strongly disagree with the federal government’s authorized principle and admit no legal responsibility,” Walgreens spokesperson Fraser Engerman mentioned in an announcement. “This decision permits us to shut all opioid associated litigation with federal, state, and native governments and gives us with favorable phrases from a cashflow perspective whereas we give attention to our turnaround technique.”

Amid slumping retailer visits and shrinking market share, Walgreens introduced it was closing 1,200 shops across the nation final October. Ceremony Support filed for chapter on the finish of 2023 because it was additionally coping with losses and opioid lawsuit settlements. The U.S. Division of Justice filed the same lawsuit in opposition to CVS in December.

The criticism says Walgreens pharmacists crammed these prescriptions regardless of clear purple flags that the prescriptions have been extremely more likely to be invalid, and the corporate pressured its pharmacists to fill them rapidly. The federal government alleges Walgreen’s compliance officers ignored “substantial proof” that its shops have been filling illegal prescriptions and withheld essential info on opioid prescribers from its pharmacists.

Walgreens then allegedly sought fee for lots of the invalid prescriptions by means of Medicare and different federal healthcare applications in violation of the False Claims Act, in response to the federal government.

The U.S. Justice Division has moved to dismiss its criticism in gentle of Friday’s settlement.

“Pharmacies have a obligation to prescribe managed substances in a secure {and professional} method, not dispense harmful medicine only for revenue,” mentioned Lawyer Basic Pamela Bondi in an announcement. “This Division of Justice is dedicated to ending the opioid disaster and holding dangerous actors accountable for his or her failure to guard sufferers from habit.”

Walgreen has additionally entered into an settlement with the Drug Enforcement Administration to enhance its compliance with guidelines round dishing out managed substances, preserve insurance policies and procedures requiring pharmacists to substantiate the validity of managed substance prescriptions, and preserve a system for blocking prescriptions from prescribers which are producing illegitimate prescriptions.

With the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies, Walgreen has agreed to ascertain and preserve a compliance program that features coaching, board oversight, and periodic reporting to the company relating to the pharmacy’s dishing out of managed substances.

“Within the midst of the opioid disaster that has plagued our nation, we depend on pharmacies to stop not facilitate the illegal distribution of those probably dangerous substances,” mentioned Norbert E. Vint, Deputy Inspector Basic of the U.S. Workplace of Personnel Administration, in an announcement.

The settlement resolves 4 circumstances introduced by former Walgreens worker whistleblowers. In 2022, CVS and Walgreens agreed to pay greater than $10 billion in a multi-state settlement of lawsuits introduced in opposition to them over the toll of the opioid disaster.

Over the previous eight years, drugmakers, wholesalers and pharmacies have agreed to greater than $50 billion price of settlements with governments — with many of the cash required for use to combat the opioid disaster.