In the next stage of the opioid saga, McKinsey reaches proposed agreement with school districts and local governments – Endpoints News
More than 18 months after agreeing to pay $600 million to settle opioid marketing claims, McKinsey told a federal judge this week that it has reached a new settlement.
The consulting firm, which worked with opioid makers such as Purdue Pharma on how to market their products, told a federal judge Wednesday that it had reached an agreement with a number of school districts and local governments.
The filing in California’s Northern District Court reads:
The subdivision and school district plaintiffs and the McKinsey defendants have reached an agreement in principle to resolve those plaintiffs’ claims. These parties will report to the court on the status of finalizing the settlement agreement at the next status conference, which they propose to be held in December 2022.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed, and McKinsey did not immediately respond to a request for comment News about endpoints.
Even with the settlement proposal, the case itself is not over. The company still faces claims from Native American tribes and claims on behalf of children with neonatal abstinence syndrome, a group of conditions caused when a baby experiences withdrawal from drugs it was exposed to during pregnancy. The next hearing in the case, according to the filing, is October 28.
Last year, McKinsey agreed to pay more than $600 million to settle opioid claims brought by all US states and territories — $573 million returned in February 2021 and another $45 million to Nevada in a separate settlement just a month later. McKinsey reaffirmed after the initial settlement that it would no longer advise clients on any opioid-related business anywhere in the world.
More recently, McKinsey came under fire earlier this year after a congressional report from the House Oversight Committee detailed how the consulting firm leveraged its work with the FDA to benefit opioid manufacturers.
As an example, Purdue Pharma had explicitly asked McKinsey for advice on how to influence FDA decision-making; according to the report, some of those projects included McKinsey taking on the task of writing “scripts” for the pharmacist to use when meeting with the FDA and talking about the safety of pediatric OxyContin.
