San Francisco has reached a $230 million settlement with Walgreens Boots Alliance (NASDAQ:WBA) Inc over its role in the city’s opioid epidemic. The settlement comes nine months after U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco said the drugstore chain could be held liable for having “substantially contributed” to an opioid epidemic that caused “widespread harm” in the city and constituted a public nuisance.
City Attorney David Chiu called Walgreens’ settlement the largest awarded to a local government in years of opioid litigation nationwide. He said Walgreens’ actions “made the opioid epidemic in San Francisco worse than it otherwise would have been,” and that “no amount of money that will bring back the lives we have lost.”
In a statement, Walgreens said it “disputes liability” and did not admit fault, but that settling allows it to focus on patients, customers and communities. The Deerfield, Illinois-based company had been the only remaining defendant in San Francisco’s civil lawsuit, after several drugmakers and distributors reached settlements worth more than $120 million.
More than 600,000 people have died from drug overdoses in the United States from 1999 to 2021, including more than 107,000 in 2021 alone, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In afternoon trading, Walgreens shares were up 63 cents at $31.98.