Colorado To Receive $385 Million In $26 Billion Opioid Agreement

DENVER (CBS4)- Colorado will receive $385 million in the $26 billion opioid agreement with the nation's three major pharmaceutical distributors: Cardinal, McKesson and AmerisourceBergen and Johnson & Johnson. The companies will start releasing funds to a national administrator on April 2.

Money will be distributed to state and local governments this summer or early fall. The J&J settlement will be paid over nine years and the drug distributor settlement will be paid over 18 years.

"Colorado has already laid the groundwork for distribution of these dollars, with all 64 counties and nearly all of our state's municipalities poised to work together to address the opioid crisis in our state," Weiser said in a statement. "I am grateful to local governments statewide for their commitment to protecting our residents and that they are, in many cases, already strategizing how these dollars can best serve their communities."

In addition to providing funds to the States, Cardinal, McKesson, and AmerisourceBergen will:

• Establish a centralized independent clearinghouse to provide all three distributors and state regulators with aggregated data and analytics about where drugs are going and how often, eliminating blind spots in the current systems used by distributors.
• Use data-driven systems to detect suspicious opioid orders from customer pharmacies.
• Terminate customer pharmacies' ability to receive shipments, and report those companies to state regulators, when they show certain signs of diversion.
• Prohibit shipping of and report suspicious opioid orders.
• Prohibit sales staff from influencing decisions related to identifying suspicious opioid orders.
• Require senior corporate officials to engage in regular oversight of anti-diversion efforts.

Johnson & Johnson is required to:

• Stop selling opioids.
• Not fund or provide grants to third parties for promoting opioids.
• Not lobby on activities related to opioids.
• Share clinical trial data under the Yale University Open Data Access Project.