West Vir­ginia judge rules in fa­vor of drug dis­trib­u­tors in opi­oid suit

Three ma­jor drug dis­trib­u­tors are off the hook for what may have been a $2.5 bil­lion pay­ment af­ter a fed­er­al judge found them not li­able for the opi­oid epi­dem­ic in parts of West Vir­ginia, one of the hard­est-hit ar­eas of the coun­try.

De­spite dis­trib­ut­ing more than 51.3 mil­lion dos­es of oxy­codone and hy­drocodone to phar­ma­cies in Ca­bell Coun­ty and the city of Hunt­ing­ton over less than a decade, McKesson, Amerisource­Ber­gen and Car­di­nal Health didn’t cause an over­sup­ply of opi­oids in the area, Judge David Faber ruled on Mon­day.

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