Reuters reported that CVS on Wednesday said it will pay about $5 billion over 10 years while Walgreens said it had agreed to pay about $5.7 billion over 15 years. However, both pharma chains did not admit to having contributed to the opioid crisis. Walmart has agreed to pay $3.1 billion, mostly upfront.

"We know that reckless, profit-driven dispensing practices fueled the crisis. But we know just as surely that with better systems in place and proper heeding of red flag warnings, pharmacies can play a direct role in reducing opioid abuse and in saving lives," Paul Geller, one of the lawyers who negotiated for the governments, said, pointing out that this will bring billions of additional funding to affected communities to combat the epidemic of opioid addiction.

In over 3,300 lawsuits since 2017, state, local and Native American tribal governments accused Big Pharma companies of downplaying the risks of their opioid pain medicines, while pharmacies ignored the warnings that prescriptions were being diverted into illegal trafficking.