Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.
Purdue Pharma, along with the Sackler family who owns the embattled drug company, have reportedly agreed to pay $4.5 billion to fifteen states in an opioid settlement reached Wednesday.
The states that agreed to the opioid epidemic settlement with Purdue include Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. These states, along with 10 others who have not yet reached an agreement, did not join an earlier settlement with 24 states prior to a bankruptcy announcement made by Purdue and the Sackler family in 2019.
The $4.5 billion settlement comes after hundreds of calls and meetings between the states and representatives for Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family, say court documents.
Three states who signed on the latest agreement, Massachusetts, New York and Minnesota, announced Thursday that they will use their share of the $4.5 billion settlement to fund opioid treatment and abatement programs. They also pledged to expose Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family’s role in fueling the opioid epidemic.
“This deal gets one of the nation’s most harmful drug dealers out of the opioid business,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James, according to Law360.
“They cannot get away with this so they can do it all over again,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison reportedly said of the deal.
Purdue has also agreed to release tens of millions of new documents to shed further light on the opioid epidemic that has raged across the nation for decades. The Sackler family has also reportedly given up naming rights connected to their charitable contributions, as well as authority over their $175 million family charitable trust fund under the terms of the deal. The family will also pay an additional $50 million.
Purdue and the Sackler family were besieged by claims that their blockbuster opioid drug, OxyContin, fueled a nationwide drug epidemic.
In 2017, the State of Oklahoma 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, netting a $270 million settlement in 2019.
Additionally, Purdue paid an undisclosed amount to resolve the claims in nearly 3,000 individual lawsuits alleging that their OxyContin and other opioid products were irresponsibly produced.
The $4.5 billion opioid epidemic settlement agreement comes as Purdue will submit its Chapter 11 plan to bankruptcy court in August.
“This resolution to the mediation is an important step toward providing substantial resources for people and communities in need. The Sackler family hopes these funds will help achieve that goal,” a representative for the Sackler family said in an email to Law360.
For its part, representatives for Purdue Pharma asserted that the settlement builds on previous agreements.
“We will continue to work to build even greater consensus for our plan of reorganization, which would transfer billions of dollars of value into trusts for the benefit of the American people and direct critically-needed medicines and resources to communities and individuals nationwide who have been affected by the opioid crisis,” said Perdue Pharma reportedly stated in a Law360 email.
Were you affected by the opioid epidemic? What do you think of the $4.5 billion settlement with Purdue Pharma? Tell us in the comment section below.
Don’t Miss Out!
Check out our list of Class Action Lawsuits and Class Action Settlements you may qualify to join!
Read About More Class Action Lawsuits & Class Action Settlements:
203 thoughts onOxyContin-Maker Purdue Inks $4.5B Opioid Epidemic Settlement With 15 States
Add me please
Please add me
Purdue had a 3% market share. How does that equal follding streets? Deaths from illicit fentanyl & other street drugs increased 1236% from 2011 to 2019. Rx involved in less than 23% and half of those involved illicit drugs. Oxycintin, a brand name w oxycodone in it, misrepresented over percocet(numerous manufacturers) bcuz the media are inept glory hounds. Ny state took the settlement bcuz purdue followed the law. Inuendo, hype, stories have little to do w the letter of the law. Check out
judgeforyourselves.info
Millions if chronic pain pts(your grama & cancer pts) suffer now because nobody understood the issue. Incidence of addicting to any dtug less than .3% to 4% whole. Myself and millions of others harmed by ignorant msm repoeting, false claims of true addiction, healthcare abandonment because were not addicts and refuse to be put in that box. Truth is coming.guaranteed. the rx opioid crisis is fake to cover 15yrs of fentanyl flooding streets unchecked.mark my words.
Add me took 3 years for a new normal
I was addicted! My dr was giving me the meds to the point that they nolonger helped with pain they become a high for me. I lost my kids as I became dependent upon them to the point I would get them from anywhere! My whole world has turned upside down due to the opioid crisis and my need for help that was ignored!
My husband become addicted , we lost everything and then couldnt afford them and went to Heroin he ODed if found him in the tub. I am a CNA so thank God I could do CPR AND saved him.
100%. I am writing this in rehab. Thanks to these pills that took my soul
Please add me to this as well. Due to mix ups with my meds and times to take, I ended up taking too much a few years back and ended up in the ER with an accidental overdose. Now I am so super sensitive to anything from a pharmaceutical company that I tend to be allergic to it and find out at the wrong times like during or right after a surgery when you seriously need it: Morphine, Oxycontin, carispraodol, fentanyl, hydrocodone, percocet, hydromorphone you name it. I will admit that I know that I abused these pills and Oxy made me feel good again and it would last for hours, but soon that feeling left. I would have to take more and more then I would become so desperate for the day for med refill. But back when I could take those pills I liked how they made me not feel my pain or basically anything. I didn’t feel like “one of those” people aka a drug user because I got my pills from a legitimate store given to me by a doctor and even had an insurance company who covered way more than I realize now that I ever should have been given. When you have a doctor giving you these pills, it fills ok, like a free pass, its when you start taking them a bit more frequent and running out days before you should, starting to think of ways to get more that you realize that you suddenly have a problem. Perhaps that overdose did me good because now I can’t have that stuff but then again it scares me to know how close I came to never seeing my kids again. Yes, these companies like J &J like to lure the Doctors in with nice kickbacks like cars, cash, vacations because they know if they win one doctor over, they can get easily several hundred if not thousands of what will soon become Unrealized hooked addicts sadly. Yes, please add me. My medical bills for overdoses and organ damage from pain meds are through the roof. I hope everyone finds a way from this ugly path that is thrust on you through times when you need the most empathy and pain relief. One more thing, the most humiliating thing is having to sign a: PAIN CONTRACT and have that in your medical file and they refuse to remove it because it is to educate other doctors. This screams so many negative connotations after the fact. Yes, things need to change.
I lost my little brother to suicide because he was strung out on oxys they should be heald acceptable.
I was prescribed Vicodin Norco, Fenytnol, morphine, Percocet, diloted and Valium by my rehabilitation doctor for over 10+ years.
I think that for you knows everyone that they have affected by there Nicolette to inform us that their product was addicting.Produce should also pay for damages to people like myself who lost everything! There is no monitor Terry value on everything that I have lost including my marriage.