NY and Connecticut announce settlements in McKinsey opioid lawsuit

New York Attorney General Letitia James and her Connecticut counterpart William Tong have announced their respective states”™ roles in the $573 million multistate settlement involving the consulting group McKinsey & Co.”™s role in the opioid epidemic.

McKinsey was sued by the attorneys general of 47 states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories for advising pharmaceutical companies ”“ including Stamford-headquartered Purdue Pharma ”“ in the marketing of opioid products, including the targeting of high-volume opioid prescribers and devising strategies needed to circumvent pharmacy restrictions on high-dose prescription deliveries. As part of the settlement, New York will receive $32 million and Connecticut will receive $7.5 million, and McKinsey will be required to release its internal documents on its work with the opioid manufacturers for public disclosure online.

“While no amount of money will ever compensate for the pain of the hundreds of thousands dead, the millions addicted, and the countless families torn apart from opioid addiction, we can ensure that those responsible for the crisis help to fund prevention, education, and treatment programs to stop additional New Yorkers and Americans across the country from becoming addicted to opioids in the first place,” said James. “This is just the beginning of our fight for justice for victims, and we will continue to do everything in our power to prevent the industry from hooking more patients and causing yet additional harm.”

“McKinsey consultants devised a deadly roadmap for Purdue to turbocharge the opioid epidemic, with callous disregard to the human suffering they caused,” said Tong, adding that his office “played a central role in these difficult negotiations to extract every possible dollar for opioid abatement, and to ensure that McKinsey”™s role in the opioid epidemic is fully exposed and never repeated.”