BALTIMORE, MD—Teva Pharmaceutical has agreed to pay Baltimore $80 million to settle claims that its role in fueling the city’s opioid epidemic led to a public health crisis, the city announced this week.

The settlement is the fourth with opioid distributors and manufacturers in connection with the city’s $322.5 million claim against Teva, the city said. The city has already received $45 million from Allergan and CVS for similar settlements.

A trial against the remaining defendants, who made up over half of the opioid market in Baltimore, is scheduled to begin on September 16th.

“This settlement marks another major victory for the City of Baltimore and further validates our decision to carry on in the fight to hold these companies accountable,” Mayor Brandon Scott said in a statement. “Nothing can undo the harm that they caused or bring back the lives lost, but we are determined to implement these resources in a way that helps move our City’s fight against this epidemic forward.”

The city said Teva agreed to pay $35 million in the first payment with the remaining balance due by July 2025. The city said it plans to allocate $5 million to education about the 988 system, $3 million to Penn North Recovery Center, and $2 million to BMore Power.

“The extraordinary amount of work put into this case by our outside counsel and our internal Law Department team has paid off for the City,” City Solicitor Ebony Thompson said in a statement. “We are very thankful that Susman Godfrey’s willingness to assume the financial risk in this case allowed us to turn down the grossly inadequate national settlements and pursue the resources our City needs to address this epidemic.”

This article was written with the assistance of AI and reviewed by a human editor.

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