Purdue Pharma and Sacklers reach new $7.4bn settlement over opioids crisis | Opioids crisis

Members of the family who own OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma agreed to pay up to $7.4bn in a new settlement to lawsuits over the toll of the powerful prescription painkiller, the New York Aattorney Ggeneral, Letitia James, announced Thursday.

The deal, agreed to by Purdue Pharma, the Sackler family members who own the company and lawyers representing state and local governments and thousands of victims of the opioid crisis, represents an increase of more than $1bn over a previous settlement deal that was rejected last year by the US supreme court.

It’s among the largest settlements reached over the past several years in a series of lawsuits by local, state, Native American tribal governments and others seeking to hold companies responsible for a deadly epidemic. Aside from the Purdue deal, others worth about $50bn have been announced – and most of the money is required to be used to stem the crisis.

The deal still needs court approval, and some of the details are yet to be ironed out.

Under the new proposal, members of the Sackler family who own Purdue would contribute up to $7.4bn over 15 years and give up ownership of Purdue, which would become a new entity with its board appointed by states and others who sued the company. A portion of the money is also to go to victims of the opioid crisis or their survivors.

The family’s contribution will be higher than the $6bn agreed to under the previous version. The supreme court blocked the agreement last year because it protected members of the wealthy family from civil lawsuits over OxyContin – even though the family members themselves were not in bankruptcy. The new agreement protects family members from lawsuits only from entities that agree to the settlement.

There’s been mediation seeking a new deal since the court’s ruling was delivered. If one is not reached, it could open the floodgates to lawsuits against Sackler family members.

The new settlement could bring to a close a chapter in a long legal saga over the toll of an opioid crisis that some experts assert began after the blockbuster painkiller OxyContin hit the market in 1996. Since then, opioids have been linked to hundreds of thousands of deaths in the US. The deadliest stretch has been since 2020, when illicit fentanyl has been found as a factor in more than 70,000 deaths annually.

Members of the Sackler family been cast as villains and have seen their name removed from art galleries and universities around the world because of their role in the privately held company. They have continued to deny claims of any wrongdoing.

Collectively, family members have been estimated to be worth billions more than they’d contribute in the settlement, but much of the wealth is in offshore accounts and might be impossible to access through lawsuits.

Purdue sought bankruptcy protection in 2019 as it faced thousands of lawsuits over the opioid crisis. Among the claims are that the company targeted doctors with a message that the addiction risk to the powerful painkillers was low.

In an October 2024 filing, one branch of the family pledged to defend itself in any cases that are allowed to move ahead, saying that the legal theory at the heart of the lawsuits – that Purdue and Sackler family members created a “public nuisance” – “is utterly devoid of merits”.