Opioid Crisis ‘Kingpin’ Is Oklahoma’s New Target in Lawsuit

After securing a hefty financial settlement from Purdue Pharma last month, Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter is training the state’s legal armaments on a much bigger pharmaceutical player: Johnson & Johnson. The company already has become a popular target. Many of the more than 1,600 opioid lawsuits in state and federal courts name Johnson & Johnson, even though its analgesic products account for less than 1% of the U.S. opioid market.But Oklahoma might be charting new legal territory in its recent salvo against the multinational manufacturer of drugs, medical devices and popular brands of baby shampoo and baby powder.Hoping to unseal millions of pages of company documents, Oklahoma’s lawyers contend that Johnson & Johnson did more than push its own pills — it also profited from the prescription opioid crisis through its ownership of a poppy producer in Australia (Tasmanian Alkaloids) and a U.S. importer of raw materials used to make opioids (Noramco).