Drugmaker fined $572m for role in opioid crisis

The opioid epidemic in the United States has claimed many victims, and a major pharmaceutical company may be paying a hefty price for its involvement.

An Oklahoma judge on Monday determined that Johnson & Johnson was liable for fueling an opioid epidemic in the south central US state by deceptively marketing addictive painkillers. The state district court ordered the New Jersey-based drugmaker to pay $572.1 million to help relieve the crisis. The company has said it will appeal the ruling.

Opioids were involved in almost 400,000 overdose deaths from 1999 to 2017, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since 2000, about 6,000 Oklahomans have died from opioid overdoses, according to the state's lawyers.

The trial came about after Oklahoma had resolved claims against OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP in March for $270 million and against Teva in May for $85 million, leaving Johnson& Johnson as the lone defendant.

Lawyers for Oklahoma argued that the company - the first opioid maker to face trial - carried out a yearslong marketing campaign that minimized the painkillers' addiction risks and promoted their benefits.

The state's witnesses cited statistics showing that enough opioids were dispensed in 2017 for every adult in Oklahoma to be given the equivalent of 156 hydrocodone 10 milligram tablets, according to The Oklahoman newspaper website.

Still, the award was well below what some investors and analysts anticipated, in what had been a $17 billion lawsuit viewed as a bellwether for other opioid litigation nationwide.

"The expectation was this was going to be a $1.5 billion to $2 billion fine," said Jared Holz, healthcare strategist for Jefferies, adding that the $572 million "is a much lower number than had been feared".

As a result, Johnson & Johnson shares rose in after-hours trading. Ranked No 37 company in the Fortune 500 list of top US companies by revenue, Johnson& Johnson plans to appeal to the Oklahoma Supreme Court and will look to put the award payment on hold.

"Janssen (a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary) did not cause the opioid crisis in Oklahoma, and neither the facts nor the law support this outcome," Michael Ullmann, Johnson & Johnson's general counsel, said in a statement.

The decision by Judge Thad Balkman of Cleveland County District Court in Norman, Oklahoma, followed a seven-week nonjury trial.

The company denied wrongdoing, saying its marketing claims had scientific support and that its painkillers, Duragesic and Nucynta, accounted for a small fraction of opioids prescribed in Oklahoma.

Ullmann faulted Oklahoma for attempting a "misapplication of public nuisance law" that judges in other states had already rejected.

Oklahoma sued Johnson& Johnson to help it relieve the epidemic for the next 30 years through treatment and prevention programs.

But the judge said the figure he awarded covered only one year, saying the state had not offered enough evidence of the time and costs to address the opioid crisis beyond that.

The litigation has been closely watched by plaintiffs in suits brought elsewhere against Johnson & Johnson and other opioid makers. Among them is a massive lawsuit, consolidated from 1,600 cases filed by cities and counties, pending in federal court in Cleveland, Ohio.