J&J coughs up $40.5M in New Hamp­shire opi­oid set­tle­ment, evad­ing up­com­ing tri­al

J&J has agreed to shell out $40.5 mil­lion to set­tle New Hamp­shire state’s al­leged claims over the com­pa­ny’s role in fu­el­ing the US opi­oid cri­sis.

The state sued the com­pa­ny in 2018 al­leg­ing that J&J’s sub­sidiaries “ag­gres­sive­ly mar­ket­ed” opi­oid painkillers and false­ly de­clared them as safer than al­ter­na­tives. The ac­cu­sa­tion in­clud­ed that J&J pro­mot­ed the false con­cept of pseudoad­dic­tion, which refers to des­per­ate drug-seek­ing that is caused not by true drug ad­dic­tion, but rather by un­der­treat­ment of pain. In ad­di­tion, the state al­leged the sub­sidiaries mis­rep­re­sent­ed that the opi­oids were rarely ad­dic­tive when used for chron­ic pain.

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