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 It is the first settlement to result from a wave of recent lawsuits
over the drugmaker's marketing of painkillers.
The settlement with Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter came just
weeks before Purdue, owned by members of the wealthy Sackler family,
was set to face the first trial to result from around 2,000 lawsuits
nationally against opioid manufacturers.
Hunter's 2017 lawsuit accuses Purdue, Johnson & Johnson & Teva
Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd of engaging in deceptive marketing
that downplayed the risks of addiction associated with opioid pain
drugs while overstating their benefits.
The companies deny wrongdoing. They had sought to delay the May 28
trial to Sept. 16, citing the need to review records the state
belatedly turned over that could be critical to their defense. The
state had been seeking over $20 billion in damages.
But a trial judge earlier this month rejected the companies' efforts
to delay the trial, and on Monday, Oklahoma's Supreme Court rejected
their appeal of that decision.
Stamford, Connecticut-based Purdue had been exploring filing for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to address potential liabilities
stemming from the lawsuits, people familiar with the matter have
told Reuters.
Hunter is scheduled to hold a press conference on Tuesday to
announce a "breaking development" in the lawsuit. A spokesman for
Hunter declined to comment. A lawyer for Purdue did not respond to a
request for comment.
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Opioids, including prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl,
were involved in a record 47,600 overdose deaths in 2017 in the
United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
The epidemic has prompted lawsuits by state and local governments
accusing various drugmakers of contributing to the crisis. Those
companies include Purdue, which introduced the painkiller OxyContin
to the market in 1996.
More than 1,600 lawsuits have been consolidated before a federal
judge in Ohio, who has pushed for a settlement ahead of the trial
before him in October. Other cases, including Oklahoma's, are
pending in state courts.
Purdue has held discussions to resolve the litigation with
plaintiffs' lawyers, who have often compared the cases to widespread
lawsuits against the tobacco industry that resulted in a $246
billion settlement in 1998.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Muralikumar
Anantharaman)
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