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Walgreens has agreed to pay the US Department of Justice up to $350 million to resolve allegations that it illegally filled millions of prescriptions for opioids and other controlled substances over the past decade. The settlement, reached last Friday, requires Walgreens to pay at least $300 million, with a further $50 million contingent on certain corporate actions before 2032.
The government’s complaint, filed in January in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, alleges that Walgreens knowingly filled millions of illegal prescriptions for controlled substances between August 2012 and March 2023. These include prescriptions for excessive opioids and prescriptions filled significantly early.
“We strongly disagree with the government’s legal theory and admit no liability,” Walgreens spokesperson Fraser Engerman said in a statement. “This resolution allows us to close all opioid related litigation with federal, state, and local governments and provides us with favorable terms from a cash flow perspective while we focus on our turnaround strategy.”
Amid slumping store visits and shrinking market share, Walgreens announced it was closing 1,200 stores around the country last October. Rite Aid filed for bankruptcy at the end of 2023 as it was also dealing with losses and opioid lawsuit settlements. The US Department of Justice filed a similar lawsuit against CVS in December.
The complaint says Walgreens pharmacists filled these prescriptions despite clear red flags that the prescriptions were highly likely to be invalid, and the company pressured its pharmacists to fill them quickly. The government alleges Walgreen’s compliance officials ignored “substantial evidence” that its stores were filling unlawful prescriptions and withheld important information on opioid prescribers from its pharmacists.
Walgreens then allegedly sought payment for many of the invalid prescriptions through Medicare and other federal healthcare programs in violation of the False Claims Act, according to the government.
The US Justice Department has moved to dismiss its complaint in light of Friday’s settlement.
Walgreen has also entered into an agreement with the Drug Enforcement Administration to improve its compliance with rules around dispensing controlled substances, maintain policies and procedures requiring pharmacists to confirm the validity of controlled substance prescriptions, and maintain a system for blocking prescriptions from prescribers that are producing illegitimate prescriptions.
