A $315 million settlement
CVS Pharmacy and several subsidiaries have agreed to pay $315 million to resolve a US Justice Department lawsuit that accused the company of filling medically unnecessary prescriptions for opioid painkillers and other controlled substances. The department announced the settlement on Tuesday.
The case, filed in 2024, alleged that CVS dispensed dangerous and excessive amounts of opioids and filled prescriptions written by doctors running so-called pill mills. It also alleged the company billed federal health care programmes for many of those prescriptions. From 2015 to 2020, CVS was among the largest dispensers of opioids in the country, selling more than 12 billion doses, according to the lawsuit.
What the Justice Department said
Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. described the resolution as a milestone in the department's work to combat the opioid epidemic by cracking down on pharmacies that unlawfully fill prescriptions for controlled substances. He said the agreement holds bad actors accountable for fraudulent activity and makes Americans safer.
CVS said in a statement that it strongly disagrees with the allegations and noted that the settlement does not constitute an admission of wrongdoing. The company has argued that pharmacists face difficult judgment calls on prescriptions written by licensed doctors.
Pressure on the pharmacy chain
The payout adds to a long list of opioid-related settlements by drugmakers, distributors and pharmacy chains over the past decade. CVS is also under pressure from investors who have called for a breakup of the company, and management has begun a strategic review of its businesses.
Opioid overdose deaths remain a major public health problem in the United States. Regulators have increasingly focused on pharmacies, arguing that they are a last line of defence against illegal prescribing and that dispensers must flag clear red flags rather than process every order.
The Justice Department has brought similar cases against other large pharmacy operators and distributors, arguing that the companies had systems capable of flagging suspicious orders but did not use them consistently. CVS said its pharmacists work within the law and that the company has strengthened its compliance programmes in recent years.