U.S. Virgin Islands – Attorney General Denise N. George announced today the final approval of the $26 billion opioid agreement with the nation’s three major pharmaceutical distributors – Cardinal, McKesson, and AmerisourceBergen – and Johnson & Johnson. Following successful state sign-on and subdivision sign-on periods, the defendants will start releasing funds to a national administrator on April 2, 2022. Money will start flowing to state and local governments and territories in the second quarter of 2022.
Fifty-two states and territories have signed on to the agreement as well as thousands of local governments across the country. On behalf of the Virgin Islands, Attorney General George signed on to the agreement for the Virgin Islands on August 3, 2020. As a result, our territory will receive our share of the settlement in the amount of $7,965,449.15, which is based on our population size and severity of the opioid crisis compared to the other states, counties, and territories. “Under the terms of the settlement agreement, eighty-five percent of these funds will go directly to support treatment, recovery, harm reduction, and other strategies to address opioid abuse and addiction,” said Attorney General George.
The agreement marks the culmination of three years of negotiations to resolve more than 4,000 claims of state and local governments across the country. It is the second largest multistate agreement in U.S. history, second only to the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.
In addition to the funds, Cardinal, McKesson, and AmerisourceBergen will:
- Establish a centralized independent clearinghouse to provide all three distributors and state regulators with aggregated data and analytics about where drugs are going and how often, eliminating blind spots in the current systems used by distributors.
- Use data-driven systems to detect suspicious opioid orders from customer pharmacies.
- Terminate customer pharmacies’ ability to receive shipments, and report those companies to state regulators, when they show certain signs of diversion.
- Prohibit shipping of and report suspicious opioid orders.
- Prohibit sales staff from influencing decisions related to identifying suspicious opioid orders.
- Require senior corporate officials to engage in regular oversight of anti-diversion efforts.
Johnson & Johnson is required to:
- Stop selling opioids.
- Not fund or provide grants to third parties for promoting opioids.
- Not lobby on activities related to opioids.
- Share clinical trial data under the Yale University Open Data Access Project.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 28, 2022
Sandra Goomansingh
Media Relations Director
(340) 774-5666 ext. 10105
Email: sandra.goomansingh@doj.vi.gov