Ohio reaches settlement agreement with opioid distributors, says state Attorney General Dave Yost

Three major opioid distributors, sued over their role in the opioid crisis, have signed off on a massive settlement deal with the state, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said Thursday.

“This is a historic day for Ohio,” he said. “Ohio’s place is now secure.”

A larger deal involving other states and parties is still up in the air, so “we negotiated a separate Ohio deal for our trial, because it was imminent,” said Yost.

The deal was years in the making. Plans of the settlement have the distributors — Dublin-based Cardinal Health; McKesson, based in Texas; and AmerisourceBergen, of Pennsylvania — paying out up to $808 million to Ohio counties and cities.     

Money could be flowing in as soon as November, the attorney general said. The distributors will dole out the money over 18 years, with no years allowed to be skipped.

“I don’t want an interruption in funding. As this money comes through, this is going to be a revenue stream year to year to year,” said Yost.

More:Ohio state, local governments will pursue joint damages settlement over opioids

However, portions of the money can be prepaid to help get in resources as soon as possible. In that case, the timeframe could be shrunk to as low as 15 years, said Yost.

Roughly 30% of the money will go to local communities, which then would be used for treatment and prevention programs for opioid addiction. Another 15% will go to the state government, and the rest will go to a foundation controlled by local government representatives.

On top of that, the companies will be picking up the state’s legal fees and up to $30 million in legal fees for local governments as well.

Funds will be distributed and split between localities based on the number of overdose deaths, addiction rates and other factors.

"There's no admission of wrongdoing on part of the companies, but the checks that they're writing are substantial," Yost previously said.

Beyond the money, the agreement had distributors agree to share information on distribution for pharmacies in Ohio or on its borders. And if the agreement is broken, the state can bring back the violations to the same judge.

The deal with the three distributors was almost in jeopardy a month ago, when not enough local governments had signed on for it to be considered by the companies in the first place.

A week-long extension of the sign-on deadline eventually got 142 of the 143 litigating entities to join the deal, more than the 96% mark needed.

Franklin County and Columbus are part of the deal, and so are Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Akron joined in after the initial deadline.

A trial was set to proceed on Monday had a deal not been reached.

Titus Wu is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.