Sackler-owned drug firm to pay out £200m
The maker of Oxycontin and the company’s controlling family, the Sacklers, have agreed to pay $270million (£204million) in a deal with Oklahoma to settle allegations that they helped set off the deadly opioid crisis in the US by aggressively marketing the prescription painkiller. It is the first settlement to come out of the recent wave of lawsuits against Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma, which has stained the name of the philanthropic Sackler family.
THE maker of Oxycontin and the firm’s controlling family have agreed to pay $270 million (£204 million) in a deal with Oklahoma to settle allegations that they helped set off the nation’s deadly opioid crisis by aggressively marketing the prescription painkiller.
It is the first settlement to come out of the recent wave of lawsuits against Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma which has stained the name of the philanthropic Sackler family.
The scandal has seen London’s Tate museums and the Guggenheim in New York cut ties with the Sacklers.
And last week the National Portrait Gallery in London said it would not proceed with a £1million pledge from a charitable organisation with links to the family.
Other institutions have also come under pressure to turn down donations or otherwise distance themselves from members of the family and the firm.
Family members were paid at least $4billion (£3billion) from 2007 to last year, largely due to profits from Oxycontin, papers filed with a Massachusetts court revealed earlier this year.
The terms of the settlement meant that associates of Purdue Pharma did not have to testify in court, suggesting it is preparing to settle thousands of other lawsuits filed by state and local governments across America.
Earlier this month bosses at Purdue Pharma acknowledged it was considering filing for bankruptcy because of the crush of lawsuits.
The deal comes two months before Oklahoma’s lawsuit against Purdue Pharma and other drug companies was set to become the first one in the barrage of litigation to go to trial.
More than $100million (£75million) from the settlement will go to fund a new addiction treatment and research centre at Oklahoma State University in Tulsa. The Sacklers will contribute an additional $75 million (£56 million) to the centre over five years.
“The addiction crisis facing our state and nation is a clear and present danger, but we’re doing something about it today,” said Mike Hunter, the Oklahoma attorney general.
The lawsuits accuse the firm of downplaying the addiction risks and pushing doctors to increase dosages even as the dangers became known.
According to court papers, Richard Sackler, then a senior vice president, proudly told the audience at a launch party for Oxycontin in 1996 that it would create a “blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition”.
Prescription opioids like Oxycontin were a factor in a record 48,000 deaths across the US in 2017, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
State officials have said that since 2009, more Oklahomans have died from opioids than in car crashes.
A spokesperson for the Sackler families said: “We have profound compassion for those who are affected by addiction.
“The National Center will provide immediate assistance to Oklahomans and individuals nationwide who need these services, and our support is in keeping with our family’s continuing commitment to making meaningful contributions to solutions that save lives.”
However, some activists were furious with the settlement, saying they were denied the chance to hold Purdue Pharma fully accountable in public, in front of a jury.
More than 1,400 federal court cases against pharmaceutical companies have been consolidated in front of a single judge in Cleveland who is pushing the drug makers and distributors to settle with state and local governments.