Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
$21 Billion Opioid Settlement Proposed
McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc. and AmerisourceBergen Corp. may pay as much as $21 billion -- $3 billion more than they offered last year -- to resolve lawsuits accusing them of mishandling deliveries of opioid painkillers and fueling a public-health crisis in the U.S. In a regulatory filing on Tuesday, McKesson said a group of state attorneys general have proposed the companies pay $21 billion over 18 years to settle more than 3,000 lawsuits filed by state and local governments seeking compensation for the costs of the opioid epidemic. The filing was first reported by Reuters. (Feeley, 11/3)
Mylan and Pfizer said they have received approval from the Federal Trade Commission for their deal to combine Mylan with Pfizer's off-patent drug business, Upjohn.聽The new combined business will be called Viatris, and its debut is expected to be Nov. 16. (Anderson, 11/3)
Bristol Myers Squibb said Tuesday that an oral drug designed to treat psoriasis differently from currently approved medicines demonstrated superiority to placebo and a competing drug from Amgen 鈥 achieving the goals of a large Phase 3 clinical trial. The safety profile of the Bristol drug called deucravacitinib, was 鈥渃onsistent鈥 with previously conducted studies, the company added. (Feuerstein, 11/3)
