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AUSTIN – The Office of the Attorney General reached a $5 billion multistate settlement with CVS for the company’s role in the national opioid epidemic, including inadequately monitoring opioid prescriptions. Over $300 million is designated for Texas. The agreement with CVS is one of numerous multibillion- dollar settlements resulting from litigation by state attorneys general against the pharmaceutical industry for practices that escalated a nationwide crisis of fatal abuse of addictive prescription narcotics.
The settlement with CVS was agreed upon with the State and the Texas Political Subdivisions, including city governments and county governments in the Texas Opioids Multidistrict Litigation, with parties from Texas joining either the larger CVS Master Global Settlement Agreement or the Texas Settlement with CVS.
The OAG is encouraging additional Political Subdivisions in Texas to sign on to the agreements to receive opioid remediation funds. Local Political Subdivisions’ participation is critical to the agreement’s success and enables Texas to receive the maximum amount of funds available under the terms of the settlement. Cities and counties that sign on are eligible for direct payments as well as grant money for opioid abatement funding from the Texas Opioid Council. Texas cities and counties seeking to sign on to the state’s settlements with Allergan, CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, Teva, Endo, and Johnson & Johnson, as well as the settlement with distributors AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson, are encouraged to visit the OAG’s opioid settlement webpage for information.
This announcement follows another recent victory in Texas’s efforts to hold accountable companies whose practices worsened the deadly opioid epidemic. In May 2023, the Texas Attorney General secured $340 million from Walgreens for its role in this crisis. The newly executed agreement with CVS highlights the OAG’s commitment to bringing the pharmaceutical industry to justice for irresponsible and illegal actions that resulted in devastating consequences for communities in Texas.
CVS’s payments to Texas taxpayers and government entities will take place over a ten-year period. The deadline for all Texas Political Subdivisions to sign onto and receive the benefits from the settlement is July 31. The settlement in principle was previously announced by the OAG in November 2022.
