They sentenced Johnson & Johnson to pay $ 572 million in opioid trials in the United States.

J & J is the first pharmaceutical company to be judged for the opioid addiction crisis in the United States, which caused more than 70,000 overdose deaths in 2017 alone.

In his verdict, Judge Thad Balkman of Cleveland County, Okla., Said prosecutors had shown J & J was contributing to "public harm" by encouraging the use of painkillers very addictive prescription.

"These actions have compromised the health and safety of thousands of people in Oklahoma."he stressed.

Balkman found that Janssen's pharmaceutical division of J & J had adopted "misleading marketing and opioid promotion" practices, which led to a crisis of dependence on these painkillers, overdose deaths and an upsurge in syndromic syndromes. neonatal weaning in the state.

"The opioid crisis has devastated the state of Oklahoma and must be brought under control immediately," said the judge.

The compensation money will be used to fund a "reduction plan" for drug-dependent care, families and communities affected by the Oklahoma crisis, where, according to the authorities, some 6,000 people have died as a result of the crisis. an overdose of opioids since 2000.

But the penalty of $ 572 million is much lower than the $ 17 million that prosecutors were asking for a 30-year program to deal with the epidemic. As a result, J & J shares rose 2% compared to 21:00 GMT during electronic trading, which was already closed at the time of the announcement of the decision.

Johnson & Johnson immediately announced that he would appeal the decision.

"Janssen has not caused the opioid crisis in Oklahoma, and neither the facts nor the law support this result," said J & J executive vice president Michael Ullmann. , quoted in a statement.

For Ullmann, punishment is a "misapplication" of the "public harm" law, which had already been rejected by judges of other states.

"The unprecedented amount of the state's" reduction plan "has radical ramifications for many sectors and has no connection with drugs or society's behavior," he said. .

This process was compared to legal proceedings against tobacco companies that resulted in an agreement of more than $ 200 billion in 1998.

But in his ruling, the judge stated that J & J was promoting its products to doctors and patients through advertising campaigns, research funding and "education", ensuring that the pain is not sufficiently treated and in "little risk of abuse". .

"The defendants used the phrase" pseudo-drug addiction "to convince doctors that patients with signs of addiction (…) were not suffering from addiction, but from insufficient treatment of pain" Balkman said.

Janssen has produced and sold Nucynta pills and the Duragesic patch containing fentanyl, one of the most potent synthetic opiates invented by the lab. The patch has been prescribed to cancer patients to treat acute pain.

In the same trial, two major pharmaceutical companies were indicted: the US Purdue Pharma laboratory and the Israeli group Teva Pharmaceuticals, which reached an agreement with the state before the case was tried.

Purdue, maker of the popular opioid Oxycontin, agreed to pay $ 270 million to the state in March, while Teva negotiated an agreement worth 85 million euros.