Baltimore reaches $80 million settlement with Teva to settle opioid litigation

Mayor Brandon M. Scott announced a week before his trial was set to begin that the city reached an $80 million settlement with Teva Pharmaceuticals to resolve the city’s claims over the company’s role in fueling Baltimore’s opioid epidemic.

Teva will make an initial payment of $35 million by the end of the year and pay the rest by July 1, 2025.

The settlement with Teva is the fourth the city has announced in connection with ongoing litigation against opioid distributors and manufacturers, and brings the city’s recoveries from opioid defendants to $322.5 million. It follows deals with Allergan and CVS for $45 million each, as well as a $152.5 million deal with Cardinal Health.

The case against the remaining defendants, who accounted for more than half the market share of the opioids that flooded Baltimore, will go to trial on September 16.

The city pursued the cases after deciding to opt out of national regulation. In 2021, Cardinal Health and three other companies — McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Johnson & Johnson — reached a global settlement with nearly every other state, county and city in America. Under the terms of the national settlement with Teva, the city would have received just $11 million paid over 13 years. Instead, in this settlement, the city will receive more than seven times this amount in less than a year.

In total, the city has now secured more than three times the total amount it would have received from all available global settlements with opioid defendants.

Under the agreement, the city said it will allocate $5 million to education and outreach efforts regarding the 988 suicide and crisis system, $3 million to Penn North Recovery Center and $2 million to BMore Power. The rest of the funds will go toward fighting the ongoing opioid epidemic in Baltimore.

“This settlement marks another major victory for the city of Baltimore and further validates our decision to continue the fight to hold these companies accountable,” said Mayor Brandon M. Scott. “Nothing can undo the harm they have caused or bring back the lives lost, but we are determined to deploy these resources in a way that will help advance our city’s fight against this epidemic. I hope these funds will help save lives and ensure that fewer families and communities have to endure the pain of losing loved ones to opioid overdose.”

City Attorney Ebony Thompson praised the work done on the case by the city’s outside counsel, Susman Godfrey, and his in-house law department team, saying the work “paid off for the city.”

The lawsuit alleges that the major manufacturers spent billions to market their products as safe and effective pain relievers, rather than as addictive pills intended for short-term use to treat acute pain. The city is trying to force the manufacturers and distributors of these opioids to assist in efforts to mitigate the effects of this epidemic. The lawsuit alleges that hundreds of Baltimoreans continue to die each year from opioid overdoses, more than from homicides, while tens of thousands more suffer from the effects of opioid use disorders, including the fight for to get a job and additional health problems.

Litigation is scheduled against remaining defendants Johnson & Johnson, McKesson, AmerisourceBergen, Walgreens and former Insys CEO John Kapoor. The case is to be judged on September 16.

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