Attorney General Aaron Ford’s office announced Wednesday that Nevada will receive an additional $193 million from Teva Pharmaceuticals through one of the state’s many settlements with major companies involved in the opioid epidemic.
Under the settlement, Teva will make annual payments to the state from July 2024 through July 2043, starting at $7 million and increasing on a sliding scale until reaching $27 million in 2042. Teva will also stop the promotion of opioids and opioid products in Nevada.
The money — as with all the other funds from similar settlements — will be distributed through the One Nevada Agreement on Allocation of Opioid Recoveries, which provides a framework for how settlement funds will be distributed between the state and local government entities to “remediate the harms, impact and risks caused by the opioid epidemic in the state.”
The law requires the development of a State Needs Assessment to identify strategies to mitigate the effects of the opioid epidemic and prioritize the needs identified in the assessment. The state is also required to create a mechanism for state agencies, counties and cities to work together through the state assessment plan so the funds are used more efficiently.
According to a statement from the attorney general’s office, the Teva settlement brings the gross amount of opioid litigation-related money to the state up to $856 million.
That amount reflects settlement victories the state achieved in the past two years over major drug companies including CVS ($151.9 million), Johnson & Johnson and its U.S.-based Jansen Pharmaceutical Companies ($53.5 million), McKinsey & Company ($45 million) and Walmart ($32.2 million), among others.
The lawsuits are a part of a nationwide response from attorneys general to major drug companies to hold them accountable for their part in the opioid epidemic. According to the Nevada Opioid Response surveillance report, in April there were a suspected 933 fatal and non-fatal overdosesstatewide in Nevada. There were also 949 overdose-related deaths in Nevada in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
“I am proud of the work that my office has done in this fight. The money coming into Nevada from these settlements will help our state recover and will help resources flow to the Nevadans impacted by this epidemic,” Ford said in the statement.
