The Attorney General for D.C. announced Monday that eight opioid drug manufactures will pay D.C. $1.2 million, as part of a larger nationwide settlement claiming the companies contributed to the “national opioid crisis.”
In a release from the office of Attorney General Brian Schwalb, he said the nationwide settlement will hold the eight companies — Alvogen, Amneal, Apotex, Hikima, Mylan, Sun, Indivior and Zydus — accountable for “putting profits over the health and well-being of D.C. residents.”
In total, these companies will pay $720 million to “virtually every state” and territory in the United States, the release read.
The settlement also prohibits seven of the eight drug companies, excluding Indivior, from marketing their opioid product and making drugs that contain more than 40 milligrams of oxycodone per pill. It also requires them to reform their corporate practices. Indivior is also banned from manufacturing or selling any opioid products for the next 10 years.
The Office of the Attorney General also said it has secured $21 million for the city after signing on to a multibillion-dollar settlement with Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family.
Schwalb said the Sackler family and its company knew “full well how addictive and dangerous their opioid drugs were, yet falsely marketed those drugs as safe.”
According to Schwalb’s office, over 1,700 people in District died between 2021 and 2024 from opioid overdoses. However, in 2024, opioid deaths fell by 33%.
The District saw a rise in opioid deaths from 2021 to 2023, with 422 deaths recorded in 2021, 458 in 2022 and 516 in 2023, D.C.’s Opioid Overdose Dashboard states.
The dashboard shows the city also had an increase in nonfatal overdoses during the same time period, with 3,489 in 2021, 4,683 in 2022 and 5,108 in 2023.
So far in 2025, fatal opioid overdose deaths total 61, a more than 80% decrease from last year, according to the dashboard.
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