Purdue Pharma, Sackler Family To Pay $7.4 Billion In Settlement Over OxyContin That Fueled ‘Devastating’ Opioid Epidemic
The Sackler family and Purdue Pharma have agreed to pay $7.4 billion to resolve nationwide opioid litigation, marking a major milestone in efforts to hold the makers of the addictive pain medication OxyContin accountable for their role in the opioid crisis. This increased settlement, announced Thursday, follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2024 rejection of a prior deal and, if approved, will conclude the most expensive corporate bankruptcy tied to the opioid epidemic, which has claimed at least 106,000 lives in the U.S.
What Happened: Purdue Pharma developed and aggressively marketed OxyContin starting in the 1990s via medical sales reps whose job was to convince doctors to prescribe more of their drug. Inappropriate prescribing of opioids was given as one of the major causes of U.S. overdoses, according to the office of Dept. of Health and Human Services.
“This story is about a family of cruel billionaires …