Sev­er­al com­pa­nies have doled out tens, if not hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars to set­tle lit­i­ga­tion sur­round­ing the role they al­leged­ly had dur­ing the opi­oid epi­dem­ic on the state lev­el. In the case of com­pa­nies like Pur­due Phar­ma, a fed­er­al judge ap­proved a set­tle­ment that would see states re­ceive up to $6 bil­lion over the next 18 years.

Now, a re­port hints that Te­va and Al­ler­gan may be lin­ing up to be the next multi­bil­lion-dol­lar set­tle­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to three sources who spoke with Bloomberg ear­li­er this week, Te­va and Al­ler­gan hint­ed at a will­ing­ness to pay a com­bined $5+ bil­lion to set­tle more than 3,500 law­suits over al­le­ga­tions that their opi­oid painkillers played a role in the opi­oid epi­dem­ic, that the com­pa­nies had en­gaged in mis­lead­ing mar­ket­ing of opi­oids and at least for Te­va, down­played the risks of opi­oid ad­dic­tion.

The sources al­so told Bloomberg that while the drug­mak­ers had been in me­di­a­tion talks with plain­tiffs for over a year, no for­mal of­fer has been made or fi­nal­ized.

Be­fore any­thing can be fi­nal­ized, there’s still a de­tail that needs to be ham­mered out — who pays how much? Bloomberg’s sources said the com­pa­nies are ar­gu­ing over an in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment that Te­va signed back in 2016 when it agreed to pay $40+ bil­lion to buy Al­ler­gan Gener­ics be­fore Al­ler­gan got picked up by Ab­b­Vie. Al­ler­gan claims that the agree­ment Te­va signed shift­ed its opi­oid li­a­bil­i­ties and costs to Te­va.

Te­va de­clined to com­ment on the re­port, and Ab­b­Vie did not re­spond to a re­quest for com­ment be­fore pub­li­ca­tion.

It would be the newest de­vel­op­ment in a long-stand­ing saga af­ter the two drug­mak­ers reached set­tle­ments with states such as Flori­da and Rhode Is­land so far this year. But in some cas­es, they are still show­ing up in courts such as in West Vir­ginia, a state hard-hit by the opi­oid epi­dem­ic and has al­ready seen oth­er drug com­pa­nies such as J&J and En­do set­tle with the state for $99 mil­lion and $26 mil­lion, re­spec­tive­ly.

If the po­ten­tial deal does get of­fered, it would be a ma­jor next step for Te­va CEO Kare Schultz, who al­ready made it clear back in Feb­ru­ary that he thinks a na­tion­al set­tle­ment for opi­oid lit­i­ga­tion is with­in reach by ear­ly 2023. It could take a de­cent chunk out of what is left to be set­tled on a na­tion­al scale af­ter Te­va orig­i­nal­ly of­fered $250 mil­lion in cash and $23 bil­lion in a sup­ply of Nar­can to reach a na­tion­al set­tle­ment in 2019.

President Joe Biden made clear in his “finish the job” State of the Union address last night that one of those jobs to be finished is insulin prices.

Biden’s push again to tackle insulin prices, after Republicans rebuffed the idea last summer and just after Biden won Medicare drug price negotiations/caps via the Inflation Reduction Act, shows how heavily he’s leaning into this work.

Six weeks into his new role at the helm of Teva Pharmaceutical, Richard Francis said it’s time to “get back to growth,” starting with a good look at the company’s priorities.

The chief executive has kicked off a strategic review, he announced during Teva’s quarterly call, which will continue over the next several months and produce results sometime in the middle of 2023. That means some pipeline cuts may be in store, he told Endpoints News, while declining to offer much more detail.

We now know where Roche’s ex-pharma chief Bill Anderson is going.

German pharma giant Bayer announced Wednesday that Anderson will be taking on the role as CEO, less than six weeks after Anderson stepped down from his perch at Roche as head of the group’s pharmaceutical division.

Roche announced back in December that Anderson would depart on Dec. 31 to “pursue opportunities outside of Roche.” His replacement, Genentech vet and Roche’s current head of global product strategy, Teresa Graham, will start her role in March.

As talk of AI this-and-that gobbles up headline after headline, one Big Pharma is losing its AI leader as she transitions to another drug giant: Iya Khalil will trade in her hat as Novartis’ go-to expert and leader in the space for Merck as VP and head of data, AI and genome sciences next week.

After nearly three years leading the artificial intelligence team at Novartis — as Big Pharma and biotechs alike latch onto the ripening AI-for-drug-discovery mode of operation — Khalil will switch employers to head up a similar post at Merck, where she’ll work out of Cambridge, MA beginning Feb. 13, the company tells Endpoints News.