CHARLESTON — Monday begins a trial for the state of West Virginia against three opioid manufacturers in Kanawha Circuit Court that is slated to take as long as two months to complete.
The trial will involve Janssen, Teva and Allergan.
Attorney General Patrick Morrisey will present opening arguments on Monday in the case, which alleges violations of the West Virginia Consumer Protection Act and caused a public nuisance.
"We have to hold the pharmaceutical supply chain responsible for any harm their conduct may cause to the state of West Virginia and its citizens," Morrisey said. "The widespread deception alleged in our lawsuits cannot be tolerated. They must be held accountable for their actions."
The lawsuits, which were originally filed in Boone Circuit Court in 2019 and will be heard in Kanawha Circuit Court, allege the defendants concealed misconduct, mischaracterized and failed to disclose the serious risk of addiction, overstated the benefits of chronic opioid therapy and promoted higher dosage amounts without disclosing inherently greater risk.
On March 30, Morrisey also announced a settlement with another company in the opioid supply chain. The settlement with Endo Health Solutions is for $26 million.
"We are very pleased with the settlement which will benefit those affected the most by the opioid crisis in West Virginia," Morrisey said. "We must hold everyone in the pharmaceutical supply chain accountable for their actions in causing this scourge."
The settlement will come in a lump sum payment for all West Virginia cities and counties.
As part of the settlement, Endo also agreed to not make deceptive statements about opioids or opioid products in the future and won't encourage the use of opioids for pain management or promote opioids to physicians through their sales representatives.
Morrisey said during a news conference on Wednesday that the landmark opioid trial beginning Monday is a very important trial for the future of the state.
"We expect that this could be a six-week to two-month trial — It's hard to predict everything that will happen — but we're ready for trial. I plan to deliver the opening statement for the state and I've been preparing for that for some time. Our team has been working very hard...we're prepared. We're ready to go."
Morrisey said there will be many witnesses in the trial, which will be the first statewide trial.
"We think there could be as many as 73 witnesses at the trial and 48 additional witnesses, so this is going to be something that the people of West Virginia have not seen before — this is the first statewide trial," Morrisey said. "There was a trial last summer where we are still waiting for resolution and that was for Cabell County and Huntington, and we've been supportive of that but this is the first statewide trial."
Morrisey said the trial is going to be extremely important.
"We go into this with a serious sense of purpose," Morrisey said. "We want accountability. That is what we are focusing on. Our people are good and they deserve to have this issue addressed."
Janssen, Teva and Allergan filed a joint pretrial memo earlier this month in the case.
"The State’s theory of causation is that the Manufacturers’ marketing deceived prescribers into writing medically inappropriate prescriptions, leading to health harms as well as diversion and trafficking not only of the medications at issue here, but also other manufacturers’ opioid medications and illicit street drugs," the memo states. "But the State’s putative causation experts do not account for a host of alternative forces that drove illicit opioid consumption in West Virginia beginning in the 1990s."
The memo also argues that the experts do not distinguish between the causal effects of truthful and allegedly deceptive statements, or between inappropriate and appropriate prescriptions—thus effectively seeking to impose liability on the manufacturers for truthful statements and appropriate prescriptions.
"And their 'aggregate' theory of causation assumes that these marketing statements caused some unspecified number of prescriptions, which caused some unspecified number of opioid-related harms in West Virginia," the memo states.
The manufacturers argue that the evidence will show there was and remains a broad consensus in the medical community, including third-party advocacy organizations and physicians, that opioid medications can be appropriately prescribed for chronic pain.
"To the extent that the Manufacturers funded or associated with some of those third-party individuals and organizations, the evidence will show that the Manufacturers did not control or influence the medical speech of any third parties that the State claims disseminated misleading messages about opioid medications," the memo states.
The case will be heard by Circuit Judge Derek Swope with the Mass Litigation Panel.