As part of the deal, Purdue will transfer nearly all of its assets to the states, cities and counties that are suing the drugmaker for selling the pain reliever OxyContin. Billions of dollars will also be provided to fund anti-addiction programs.
bankrupt
A bankruptcy judge already decided last year that the company would be divided into pieces and creditors agreed to that plan. The company would then pay $4.5 billion in damages. But prosecutors from several states disagreed, and a US judge subsequently canceled that plan late last year.
The Sackler family has now reached a new settlement with those states. The branch of the US Department of Justice that monitors bankruptcies also opposed the earlier deal. That body is not part of the new settlement. That could still lead to a lawsuit.
Half a million dead
A huge number of Americans are addicted to some form of pain medication known as the opiate crisis. According to the American health service CDC, a kind of RIVM, about half a million people have died in the United States since 1999 from an overdose of opiates. Purdue Pharma is accused of promoting OxyContin through aggressive marketing practices, while concealing the risks of addiction and overdose.