Purdue Pharma, the drug firm that earned billions of dollars in the sale of painkilling medicine OxyContin, has declared itself bankrupt Sunday night after the company struck a tentative agreement with government authorities for its involvement in the opioid epidemic, The Washington Post reported.
Purdue's top executives met late Sunday to approve the bankruptcy filing, which was made in a federal court in White Plains, New York. The filing was expected prior to and right after the indefinite deal, which could be valued at around $12 billion over time, was finalized.
In a statement, the drugmaker's board chairman Steve Miller said that the settlement prevents "wasting hundreds of millions of dollars" and years on prolonged legal actions.
But court battles are still in the offing for Purdue Pharma, which has spent millions of dollars on legal fees as the company defends itself in court from 2,600 state and other entities.
The maker of the controversial OxyContin drug - and the Sackler family who owns the Stamford, CA-headquartered firm - have reportedly reached a tentative deal involving the said lawsuits filed against them.
As of 2016, Purdue had made over $31 billion in sales from OxyContin, an opioid medication used to treat moderate to severe pain. Still, the tentative deal would be the biggest payout from any firm charged with fueling the opioid mess responsible for over 700,000 overdose deaths in the United States since 1999.
According to the families of late company founders Raymond and Mortimer Sackler, they have "deep compassion for the victims" and believe the settlement "is a historic step toward providing critical resources to address this tragic situation."
The allegations contend that Purdue aggressively sold OxyContin as a medication with a "low risk of addiction" despite its knowledge that this was not true. Since it was introduced in the market in 1996, cases of overdoses and addiction have risen. For 2017 and 2018 alone, opioids claimed over 47,000 lives, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disclosed.
The first round of the court proceedings for the piles of lawsuits against the opioid company, which the federal courts in Ohio have consolidated, is set to start the first week of October.
But there's one big obstacle that needs to be ironed out: Not everyone who is filing charges against the drugmaker and other opioid manufacturers for their hand in the epidemic is on the same boat with the settlement.
These other plaintiffs may demand further payouts and over half of government legal counsels junked the settlement and want to pursue their own legal cases against Purdue and its owners.
The lawsuits aim to not just hold the pharmaceutical firm accountable for the opioid catastrophe but also force them to pay for addiction treatment that could help contain the epidemic.
