Purdue and Sackler family agree to $7.4bn opioid settlement with US states

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The Sackler family and the opioid maker they founded, Purdue Pharma, have agreed to jointly pay $7.4bn to settle debts over their role in the opioid crisis, ending months of negotiations after the deal was the past is ruined.

This latest agreement, which still needs the approval of the banking court, is $1.4bn more than the first agreement made between the parties. The new decision was agreed between more than a dozen US states and other people who had filed lawsuits against the company.

The drugmaker originally filed for bankruptcy in 2019 in New York federal court to manage hundreds of lawsuits over its role in the opioid crisis. As part of the deal, the Sackler family will pay $6.5bn over the next 15 years, while Purdue will pay $900mn.

“Families across New York and across the country are suffering tremendous pain and loss as a result of the opioid crisis,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of the officials who assisted the dealer, said. said on Thursday. “While no amount of money will ever fully repair the damage it has caused, this massive influx of funds will bring resources to communities in need so we can heal.”

Purdue’s latest result is one of the biggest gains to emerge from the US opioid crisis, which has led to more than 600,000 deaths since 1999, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A previous $6bn settlement agreed between the Sackler family and creditors – which was heavily negotiated during the pandemic – was overturned by the US Supreme Court last summer. The agreement was based on protecting family members from future lawsuits, which the high court said were not allowed without family members testifying themselves.

The new agreement is structured so that Sacklers will not be given automatic protection from debt, but victims will need to agree not to take further legal action in order to receive payment, to according to a statement from the New York attorney general’s office.

The Supreme Court’s decision left lawyers and companies scrambling to resolve so-called “grand juries”, where product liability claims have reached thousands of victims and hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.

Funds made by the Sacklers and Purdue will be used over the next 15 years to pay for opioid addiction treatment and recovery programs, the Texas attorney general’s office said.

Importantly for many victims, members of the Sackler family will no longer be allowed to sell opioids in the US as part of the agreement, and their ownership of Purdue has ended.

Sackler’s family did not immediately respond to a request for comment.