The holding company which owns Boots has agreed to pay $500m (£400m) to New Mexico to settle claims its pharmacies helped fuel opioid addiction, lawyers for the state have said.

The settlement, the largest obtained by New Mexico against a single company over opioids, came after a non-jury trial last year in the state’s lawsuit against the company.

The judge overseeing that trial had not yet ruled on the state’s claims that Walgreen Boots Alliance fuelled opioid addiction by failing to stop illegal pill sales.

Mark Pifko, a lawyer for the state, has said in a statement: “We are confident that this record settlement positions New
Mexico to turn the tide on this deadly epidemic.”

New Mexico has now settled all of its major opioid-related lawsuits, recovering more than $1bn (around £800m) including Friday’s deal, Mr Pifko said.

Walgreens Boots Alliance did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement.

The American-British-Swiss holding company headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois, owns the retail pharmacy chains Walgreens in the US and Boots in the UK.

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More than half a million people died from drug overdoses in the United States from 1999 to 2020, with opioids responsible for a large amount of the deaths.

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Overdose deaths have risen further since then, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.

New Mexico’s lawsuit against Walgreens was one of more than 3,300 filed by state and local governments accusing pharmacies and distributors of ignoring red flags that opioids were being diverted to the black market.

The lawsuits have also accused drugmakers of downplaying the risks of the addictive pain drugs.

The litigation, now winding down, has resulted in more than $50bn (around £40bn) in settlements, including a $5.7bn (£4.5bn) nationwide deal between states and Walgreens in which New Mexico did not take part.

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