A Burns Charest team led by partners Warren Burns and Darren Nicholson has reached a settlement in four nationwide class actions on behalf of acute care hospitals nationwide impacted by the opioid epidemic. The settlement approved by the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico includes $651 million in compensation to the hospitals for the past and future costs for treatment of opioid abuse and community outreach programs to address the epidemic, and an additional $49 million to supply the opioid antagonist Naloxone to hospitals across the nation.

The settling defendants include pharmaceutical companies such as Janssen, Johnson & Johnson, Teva, and Allergan, and pharmaceutical distributors including Cardinal Health, McKesson Corporation, and Cencora (formerly known as AmerisourceBergen).

“We’re very pleased these defendants recognized their responsibility to the thousands of acute care hospitals who have been on the front lines of the opioid epidemic for decades,” says Mr. Burns, an original attorney in the litigation and member of the settlement class counsel team.