Consulting firm McKinsey and Co. agreed to pay $78 million to settle claims from insurers and health care funds that its work with drug companies helped fuel an opioid addiction crisis. The agreement was disclosed Friday in documents filed in federal court in San Francisco, the Associated Press reports. The settlement must be approved by a judge. McKinsey would establish a fund to reimburse insurers, private benefit plans and others for some or all of their prescription opioid costs. The insurers argued that McKinsey worked with Purdue Pharma – the maker of OxyContin – to use aggressive marketing and sales tactics to overcome doctors’ reservations about the addictive drugs. Insurers said that forced them to pay for prescription opioids rather than safer, non-addictive, lower-cost drugs, including over-the-counter pain medication. They also had to pay for the opioid addiction treatment that followed.
From 1999 to 2021, nearly 280,000 people in the U.S. died from overdoses of prescription opioids. Insurers argued that McKinsey worked with Purdue Pharma even after the extent of the opioid crisis was apparent. The settlement is the latest in a long effort to hold McKinsey accountable for its role in the opioid epidemic. In 2021, the company agreed to pay nearly $600 million to states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories. In September, the company announced a $230 million settlement agreement with school districts and local governments. McKinsey said it stopped advising clients on any opioid-related business in 2019.
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