Te­va Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals on­ly has two more states to go be­fore the en­tire na­tion has ei­ther reached set­tle­ments or agreed to par­tic­i­pate in a set­tle­ment deal with the gener­ics gi­ant over its role in the US opi­oid epi­dem­ic, the com­pa­ny an­nounced to­day.

With 48 states un­der its belt, Te­va said it’s at “a suf­fi­cient lev­el” to move for­ward with its na­tion­wide set­tle­ment agree­ment to re­solve opi­oid-re­lat­ed claims. Te­va will still con­tin­ue to pur­sue the two hold­out states, New Mex­i­co and Neva­da, in a bid to get them to par­tic­i­pate, the com­pa­ny told End­points News via email.

Now that the na­tion­wide agree­ment is mov­ing for­ward, the en­roll­ment pe­ri­od for states’ sub­di­vi­sions, such as cities and coun­ties, is open. The sub­di­vi­sions have 90 days to join.

“Giv­en the very pos­i­tive re­sponse from states, the Com­pa­ny re­mains op­ti­mistic that the na­tion­wide set­tle­ment will gar­ner sim­i­lar sup­port from the states’ sub­di­vi­sions,” Te­va said in a state­ment, adding that it “re­mains in the Com­pa­ny’s best in­ter­est – and in the in­ter­est of those im­pact­ed by the opi­oid cri­sis – to set­tle these cas­es and to con­tin­ue to fo­cus on the pa­tients Te­va serves every day.”

As part of the agree­ment pre­vi­ous­ly reached with states’ at­tor­neys gen­er­al and lawyers for the states and sub­di­vi­sions, Te­va will ad­mit no wrong­do­ing.

In Ju­ly, Te­va ex­ecs dis­cussed the deal in an earn­ings call, an­nounc­ing the com­pa­ny had agreed to pay up to $4.25 bil­lion over 13 years to set­tle opi­oid lit­i­ga­tion, as well as $100 mil­lion to Na­tive Amer­i­can tribes. That num­ber in­clud­ed the cas­es that had al­ready set­tled at the time for about $550 mil­lion.

Te­va re­cent­ly re­port­ed $195 mil­lion in le­gal set­tle­ments and loss con­tin­gen­cies, com­pared to just $3 mil­lion in the third quar­ter of 2021, ac­cord­ing to SEC fil­ings.

The com­pa­ny has al­ready reached set­tle­ments with mul­ti­ple ju­ris­dic­tions, in­clud­ing Texas, Flori­da, Louisiana, Rhode Is­land, West Vir­ginia, San Fran­cis­co and New York. The lat­ter set­tle­ment con­clud­ed in No­vem­ber, with the state get­ting more than half a bil­lion dol­lars, End­points re­port­ed. That in­cludes rough­ly $210.5 from the na­tion­al set­tle­ment and an­oth­er $313.3 mil­lion from a tri­al win.

Nalox­one hy­drochlo­ride nasal spray, which can re­verse an opi­oid over­dose, is al­so part of sev­er­al set­tle­ments. Te­va an­nounced the launch of its gener­ic ver­sion of Nar­can in De­cem­ber 2021.

In San Fran­cis­co, Te­va will have to pay out $24.8 mil­lion over 13 years, as well as pro­vide nalox­one hy­drochlo­ride nasal spray in an amount val­ued at $20 mil­lion (val­ued at whole­sale ac­qui­si­tion cost) over 10 years. Te­va al­ready set­tled with West Vir­ginia as well, pay­ing out $75 mil­lion over 15 years and $8 mil­lion in at­tor­neys’ fees as well as $27 mil­lion worth of gener­ic Nar­can over 10 years.

Te­va has been ac­cused of de­cep­tive mar­ket­ing tac­tics around opi­oids, in­clud­ing down­play­ing the risk of ad­dic­tion and over­stat­ing their ben­e­fits. But it’s not the on­ly one.

Wal­mart an­nounced a $3 bil­lion opi­oid-re­lat­ed set­tle­ment in No­vem­ber, join­ing CVS and Wal­greens. The New York At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s of­fice ac­cused Wal­mart of con­tribut­ing to the US opi­oid cri­sis by fail­ing to reg­u­late opi­oid pre­scrip­tions at its stores. Ab­b­Vie’s Al­ler­gan agreed to pay up to $2.37 bil­lion to state and lo­cal gov­ern­ments af­fect­ed by the opi­oid cri­sis.

Ac­cord­ing to the CDC, more than 263,000 peo­ple died in the Unit­ed States from over­dos­es in­volv­ing pre­scrip­tion opi­oids from 1999 to 2020, while over­dose deaths in­volv­ing pre­scrip­tion opi­oids in­creased by near­ly five times dur­ing that time­frame.

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.