Pharmaceutical companies supported
McKinsey pays millions of dollars in opioid settlement
December 30, 2023, 1:15 p.m
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Did McKinsey boost sales of painkillers through misleading campaigns, thereby contributing to the opioid crisis in the US? In any case, the consulting firm has already had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to settle lawsuits. A comparison will now also be expensive for McKinsey.
The consulting firm McKinsey has agreed to a settlement with US health insurers and care plans related to opioids. According to the settlement in federal court in San Francisco, the company will pay $78 million to the plaintiffs. This is the latest in a series of settlements that McKinsey has reached to resolve opioid-related lawsuits in the United States.
The plaintiffs had accused the consulting firm of contributing to the opioid crisis by helping pharmaceutical companies like Purdue Pharma plan misleading marketing campaigns and boost sales of painkillers. The settlement still needs to be approved by a judge.
Paul Geller, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the drug crisis was caused by an oversupply of dangerous addictive drugs and that the settlement was aimed at “recouping some of the money spent on the over-prescribed pills.” However, McKinsey did not admit any wrongdoing and said it continued to believe it had worked legally. In addition, in 2019 they committed to no longer advising customers in connection with opioid transactions.
Hundreds of thousands of opioid deaths in the USA
McKinsey has already paid $641.5 million to settle lawsuits brought by federal prosecutors and $230 million to settle lawsuits brought by local governments. The company also reached an agreement with Native American tribes. According to US health authorities, around 645,000 people died of an opioid overdose in the US from 1999 to 2021.
Thousands of lawsuits have been filed by states, local governments and indigenous peoples. They accused the pharmaceutical companies of downplaying the risks of painkillers. Pharmacies and dealers were accused of ignoring evidence of illegal trade in these drugs. The legal disputes resulted in settlements with pharmaceutical companies, retailers and pharmacy chains worth more than $50 billion.