By Nate Raymond
Oct 13 (Reuters) – CVS Health has agreed to pay $315 million to resolve allegations that the pharmacy chain operator unlawfully filled medically unnecessary prescriptions for addictive opioid painkillers, the US Justice Department said on Tuesday.
The settlement resolves a case the department announced in 2024 that sought to hold CVS responsible for its role in dispensing massive quantities of dangerous drugs like opioids that were at the heart of a nationwide addiction epidemic.
The lawsuit alleged that CVS since 2013 had illegally filled prescriptions for opioids and other narcotics in violation of the federal Controlled Substances Act and then sought payment from federal healthcare programs like Medicare in violation of the False Claims Act.
As part of the settlement, CVS entered into an agreement with the Drug Enforcement Administration under which the chain would establish processes to monitor and receive reports of potentially illegal dispensing in its pharmacies and evaluate doctors suspected of illegally prescribing opioids.
“Today’s settlement is a significant milestone in the Justice Department’s efforts to combat the opioid epidemic by cracking down on pharmacies who unlawfully fulfill prescriptions for controlled substances,” Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said in a statement.
CVS said in a statement that it disagreed with the Justice Department’s allegations and was not admitting wrongdoing.
“Our more than 27,000 CVS pharmacists do their part to help keep America healthy and are highly trained in the safe and appropriate use of all medications,” CVS said.
The Justice Department settled a similar case in August against rival pharmacy chain operator Walmart, which agreed to pay $50 million to resolve a 2020 lawsuit alleging it unlawfully dispensed opioid prescriptions.
CVS agreed to pay close to $5 billion in 2022 to settle thousands of similar claims by state, local and Native American tribal governments, which had pursued a series of related cases against other drug companies and pharmacy chains accused of fueling an opioid addiction epidemic in the US.
The Justice Department’s lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Rhode Island, began as a whistleblower complaint brought by a former CVS employee.
The lawsuit alleged that the company dispensed prescriptions for dangerous and excessive amounts of opioids and other drugs and filled prescriptions from doctors running so-called pill mills that prescribed large amounts of addictive opioids that lacked any legitimate medical purpose.
The lawsuit noted that CVS had been among the top dispensers of opioids in the nation, selling over 12 billion doses of the drugs from 2015 to 2020.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Additional reporting by Ismail Shakil; Editing by Will Dunham and David Gregorio)
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