Four drug companies have reached a settlement with two northeast Ohio counties to avoid a trial claiming their responsibility for the opioid epidemic. What’s next The settlement does not include the fifth defendant, Walgreens, the drugstore chain who was sued over its own distribution operation. Attorneys for the plaintiffs said Walgreens would be included in the next phase of the trial, set to take place in early 2020, which also includes other retail pharmacies and drug manufacturers. “Those cases include a component of dispensing as well as distribution,” Shkolnik said. “They’re distributors and they’re dispensers. They have information that even these big three [McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen] didn’t have and they knew who were the addicts filling prescriptions. And they didn’t do the right thing and we’re going to show that in the second phase.” Download