By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) – Consulting agency McKinsey & Co has agreed to pay $78 million to resolve claims by U.S. well being insurers and profit plans that it fueled an epidemic of opioid habit by way of its work for drug corporations together with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma.

The settlement was disclosed in papers filed on Friday in federal courtroom in San Francisco. It marked the final in a sequence of settlements McKinsey has reached resolving lawsuits over the U.S. opioid epidemic.

Plaintiffs accused McKinsey, one of many main international consulting corporations, of contributing to the lethal drug disaster by serving to drug producers together with Purdue Pharma design misleading advertising and marketing plans and increase gross sales of painkillers.

McKinsey beforehand paid $641.5 million to resolve claims by state attorneys basic and one other $230 million to resolve claims by native governments. It has additionally settled instances by Native American tribes.

Friday’s class motion settlement, which requires a choose’s approval, resolves claims by so-called third-party payers like insurers that present well being and welfare advantages.

Paul Geller, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, in an announcement stated the drug disaster was brought on by an oversupply of harmful addictive medicine, and the case aimed to “get well a few of the cash spent on the over-prescribed capsules.”

McKinsey didn’t admit wrongdoing. In an announcement, the agency stated it continued to imagine its previous work was lawful. It additionally famous it had dedicated in 2019 to now not advise shoppers on any opioid-related enterprise.

Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed by states, native governments and Native American tribes accusing drug corporations of downplaying the dangers of opioid painkillers, and distributors and pharmacies of ignoring pink flags that they have been being trafficked illegally.

The litigation has resulted in additional than $50 billion in settlements with drugmakers, distributors and pharmacy chains.

Almost 645,000 folks died in the US from overdoses involving opioids, each prescription and illicit, from 1999 to 2021, based on the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.

The U.S. Supreme Court docket earlier this month heard a problem by President Joe Biden’s administration to Purdue Pharma’s multi-billion-dollar chapter settlement resolving associated claims towards the drugmaker.