Northampton Board approves three opioid settlements

By Ava Canade

The Northampton County Board of Supervisors voted to approve their involvement in three settlements regarding opioid related claims at their August 12th meeting.

One resolution allows the County to receive part of the $720 million dollars that pharmaceutical companies Alvogen, Amneal, Apotex, Hikma, Indivior, Mylan, Sun, and Zydus will pay out across the country to resolve opioid-related claims against them.

A second resolution allows the County to accept the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy plan and be involved in the settlement of opioid-related claims against the Sackler family.

The third resolution accepted the settlement amount of $756.63 regarding Henry Schein defendants in relation to opioids.

County Administrator Charles Kolakowski added that Northampton County would likely receive small amounts of money for their participation in these lawsuits and that all funds would have to go towards dealing with opioid related issues in the County.

“One bright part of getting so little is that we have had relatively small impact from the crisis,” he said. “This is one of those things where you don’t want to be eligible for a lot of money because that means you’ve had a bad problem.”

All three resolutions passed unanimously by the Board.