Purdue Agrees to $270M Oklahoma Opioid Settlement

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Purdue Pharma has agreed to pay $270 million to settle a lawsuit over its role in dispensing highly addictive opioid medications, specifically OxyContin, linked to an epidemic of overdoses and even deaths in the past decades.

In 2017, the State of Oklahoma, along with its Attorney General Mike Hunter, went after Purdue and a number of other pharmacy companies alleging they “executed massive and unprecedented marketing campaigns” that misrepresented the risks of opioid-based drugs.

“To encourage physicians to prescribe more opioids, Defendants even[] went so far as to tell prescribers that classic signs of addiction should actually be treated with more opioid use because they were signs of ‘pseudoaddiction’ which meant the patient was supposedly experiencing undertreated pain,” the original petition states.

Indeed, the so-called opioid epidemic has ravaged many parts of the United States since the introduction of narcotic painkillers on to the market approximately a decade ago.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that drug overdose deaths have increased steadily since 1999, and then spiked between 2015 and 2017.

These deaths are attributed to the increase in the availability of prescription opioid painkillers, then the subsequent introduction of far more dangerous drugs like fentanyl.

The opioid lawsuit lodged by the State of Oklahoma alleged that Purdue, the preeminent producer and distributor of one of the most widely available prescription narcotic painkillers, OxyContin, played an integral part in that state’s struggle with addiction.

“The damage Defendants’ false and deceptive marketing campaigns caused to the State of Oklahoma is catastrophic,” contends the complaint. “Oklahoma is one of the leading states in prescription painkiller sales per capita, with 128 painkiller prescriptions dispensed per 100 people in 2012.”

“Drug overdose deaths in Oklahoma increased eightfold from 1999 to 2012, surpassing car crash deaths in 2009. According to 2016 statistics, Oklahoma ranks number one in the nation in milligrams of opioids distributed per adult resident, with approximately 877 milligrams of opioids distributed per adult resident.”

Oklahoma, along with a number of other state and local governments have hit Purdue Pharma, along with other major producers of opioid medications with lawsuits alleging gross mismarketing of these drugs has caused addiction and death.

While pharmaceutical companies got rich from the sale of these addictive substances, state and local governments say they have then been left with few resources to deal with the onslaught of social and economic problems left in the wake of the opioid epidemic.

“A 2016 government study estimated the national economic impact of prescription opioid overdoses, abuse and dependence to be $78.5 billion annually, with one-fourth of the amount funded by public sources including government funded insurance and government expenditures on treatment of substance abuse,” notes the Oklahoma complaint.

Purdue’s $270 million settlement offer is the first in thousands of lawsuits lodged against it and other major pharmaceutical companies, including Johnson & Johnson, Janssen, and Teva.

While some say that Purdue’s move is a portent of things to come, others say that it is a move by the company to avoid additional disclosure.

“We’re hopeful that this is a sign that Purdue and hopefully other companies are serious about trying to do something to fix the problem,” a lead attorney for the plaintiffs in multidistrict litigation lodged by local governments over opioids told Law360.

The State of Oklahoma is represented by Mike Hunter, Attorney General for the State of Oklahoma.

The Oklahoma Opioid Lawsuit is State of Oklahoma, et al. v. Purdue Pharma LP, et al., Case No. CJ-2017-816, in the District Court of Cleveland County, State of Oklahoma.