(Reuters) -CVS Health Corp and Walmart Inc have agreed to pay $147.5 million to settle West Virginia’s claims over their alleged roles in the state’s opioid crisis, state attorney general Patrick Morrisey said Tuesday.
West Virginia had been prepared to proceed to trial on Sept. 26 against those two companies and Walgreens Boots Alliance.
The state had accused the pharmacy chains of fueling the deadly opioid epidemic through their allegedly lax oversight of prescription pills sold in the state.
Walgreens has not settled, and a trial has been rescheduled for June 2023.
“We believe that we have a very strong case against Walgreens,” Morrisey said at a news conference. “We’re going to pursue that quite vigorously.”
The state has been particularly hard hit by the epidemic, with a per capita opioid mortality rate over three times the national average in 2020, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics.
(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
