AP
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Walgreens has agreed to pay up to $ 350 million in agreement with the US Department of Justice, and has accused pharmacies illegally filling up millions of prescriptions for opioids and other control substances over the past decade.
The pharmacy chain nationwide has reached an agreement that has reached last Friday, and if the company is sold, merger or transferred before 2032, the government must pay at least $ 300 million and pay $ 50 million.
The government’s dissatisfaction with the US District Court in northern Illinois argues that Walgreens deliberately filled millions of illegal prescriptions for materials controlled between August 2012 and March 2023. Here, the prescription for excessive opioids and prescriptions is largely filled.
FRASER ENGERMAN, a spokesman for Walgreens, said, “We are not strongly agreeing with the government’s legal theories and are not responsible.” Through this resolution we can terminate all opioid lawsuits with the Federal, State and Local governments, and we provide advantages from cash flow while we are focusing on processing strategies. ”
Walgreens announced that it will close 1,200 stores nationwide in October as the store visits and market share. RITE AID applied for bankruptcy at the end of 2023 and applied for bankruptcy because it was dealing with losses and opioid litigation agreements. The US Department of Justice filed a similar lawsuit against CVS in December.
This complaint filled the prescription despite the clear timely manner that Walgreens pharmacists are likely to be invalid, and the company has put pressure on the pharmacist to quickly fill it. The government insisted that compliance officials of Walgreen ignored “practical evidence” that shops were filling illegal prescriptions and withholding important information about the pharmacist’s opioid prescribed.
According to the government, Walgreens insisted that they want to pay much of a valid prescription through Medicare and other federal medical programs.
The US Department of Justice moved to dismiss dissatisfaction in light of the Friday agreement.
Attorney General Pamela Bondi said, “The pharmacy has legal responsibility to prescribe a safe and professional material in a safe and professional manner.” The Ministry of Justice is trying to end the opioid crisis and to be responsible for not protecting the patient from bad actors.
Walgreen also signed a contract with the drug executive bureau to improve the rules for distributing control substances, maintain a policy and procedure that requires pharmacists to confirm the effectiveness of the prescription of the control material, and maintains a system to block prescriptions from prescribers who produce illegal prescription warfare.
Walgreen agreed with the US Ministry of Health and Welfare to establish and maintain a regulations on the pharmacy of pharmacies, the board supervision and regular reports on pharmacies.
Norbert E. Vint, the vice -president of the US HR Management Bureau, said, “In the middle of the opioid crisis that harasses our country, we rely on pharmacies to prevent the illegal distribution of potential harmful substances.
This agreement solves the four cases brought by the former Walgreens employees. In 2022, CVS and Walgreens agreed to pay more than $ 10 billion in the multi -stage lawsuit filed for the damage of the opioid crisis.
For the past eight years, pharmaceuticals, wholesalers and pharmacies have agreed to settle more than $ 50 billion with the government with most of the money used to fight the opioid crisis.
