J&J, McKesson Must Face Opioid-Marketing Racketeering Claims

Johnson & Johnson, McKesson Corp. and other makers and distributors of opioid painkillers must face claims they engaged in racketeering by wrongfully working together to swell the market for opioid painkillers and reap billions of dollars in sales, a judge concluded.

It’s up to juries to decide whether opioid manufacturers, such as J&J, and distributors, like McKesson, came together in an illicit enterprise designed to fan demand for the addictive painkillers by duping doctors about opioid risks and turning a blind eye to suspiciously large orders of the medicines, U.S. District Judge Dan Polster wrote Sept. 10.

If jurors ...