Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach announced the state will receive $5.7 million from eight companies that manufactured opioid pills as part of a national settlement that totaled $720 million.
Kansas’s piece of the settlement is based on the impact of the opioid crisis in each state and how it participated in the court proceedings. The companies include the following
- Mylan (now part of Viatris): $284,447,916 paid over nine years.
- Hikma: $95,818,293 paid over one to four years.
- Amneal: $71,751,010 paid over 10 years.
- Apotex: $63,682,369 paid in a single year.
- Indivior: $38,022,450 paid over four years.
- Sun: $30,992,087 paid over one to four years.
- Alvogen: $18,680,162 paid in a single year.
- Zydus: $14,859,220 paid in a single year.
- Each company can no longer promote or market opioids, and are not allowed to sell any product with more than 40mg of oxycodone per pill, except Indivior who will not manufacture or sell opioid products for 10 years. They also must use monitoring and reporting systems for suspicious orders.
Payments could begin as soon as 2026, and 45 states in total have signed up in the settlement, which was negotiated by the attorneys general offices in North Carolina, California, Colorado, Illinois, New York, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia.
The attorneys generals from those states announced the agreement on July 10, and allowed other states to sign on to the settlement over the next couple days.
“We are holding these companies accountable for the human suffering caused by years of their illegal marketing practices,” Kobach said. “These dollars will help save lives, because the funds will be used to prevent and treat drug addiction throughout Kansas.”
The entire nation has seen rising overdose deaths from opioids over the past two decades. Kansas recorded 613 fatal drug poisonings in 2023, and the Kansas Department for Health and Environment said at least 63% of overdose deaths involved an opioid.
As reported in the Topeka Capital Journal
