Framingham sues drug makers, distributors over opioid epidemic

City officials are pressing their case against drug makers and distributors for what they describe as reckless conduct that fueled the nation’s opioid epidemic. A pair of law firms representing the city recently filed a lawsuit in Middlesex Superior Court seeking damages from a range of major corporations involved in the production and sale of opioid drugs. The suit, filed Dec. 5, names as defendants pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors, as well as some individual board members and executives of the companies. It alleges they engaged in deceptive marketing and allowed the community to become saturated with painkillers, precipitating a deadly public health crisis.
Framingham joins a range of other communities across the country taking legal action to help defray its added costs. Mayor Yvonne Spicer’s announcement said the city’s decision to file suit is about “justice, purse, and simple.” “Through its first responders, social services, and other departments, Framingham has been forced to the front lines of the terrible opioid crisis that we believe the pharmaceutical industry unleashed on the people of Massachusetts,” Spicer said. “The cost to our city — in terms of lives, resources, and quality of life — is almost unfathomable.” The defendants include Purdue Pharma, maker of the drug OxyContin, as well as Insys Therapeutics, Mckesson Corporation, Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen Drug Corporation, Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Cephalon, Collegium Pharmaceutical, Johnson & Johnson, Janssen Pharmaceuticals and numerous others.