Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, set to dissolve after judge approves its criminal sentence

Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, is set to be dissolved and replaced by a company focused on the public good by the week’s end, as a massive legal settlement resolving thousands of lawsuits takes effect.

It’s a long-awaited decision for thousands of families impacted by the opioid crisis, which has been linked to an estimated 900,000-plus deaths since 1999.

The sentence

The guilty plea and civil settlement with the federal government included $8.3 billion in forfeitures, fines and penalties. But the federal government agreed in a negotiated settlement to collect just $225 million in exchange for Purdue reaching a separate settlement on the thousands of lawsuits it faced from state, local and Native American tribal governments, along with other groups. Purdue’s guilty plea did not include restitution to victims.

After years of legal twists and turns — and $1 billion and counting in legal and professional fees for the parties — the broader sentence was approved by a bankruptcy judge in November.

The settlement, which Purdue says could take effect as soon as Friday, calls for members of the Sackler family who own the company to contribute up to $7 billion over 15 years. Most of the money is to go to government entities to use to fight the opioid crisis.

A Purdue lawyer said most of the lawsuits against the company over opioids did not include specific financial claims, but the ones that did totaled over $40 trillion in damages.

Payments to individual victims are expected to range from about $8,000 to about $16,000. Overall, the settlements are worth more than $50 billion, and most of the money is to be used to address the overdose epidemic.

Families speak out

Those who say their loved ones died because of opioid addiction gathered Tuesday in front of Newark’s federal courthouse, holding pictures of their relatives on paper headstone cutouts. They blame Purdue Pharma.

“Because of OxyContin, that led to heroin and fentanyl,” one protester said.

“My son died Presidents’ Day 2001,” said another.

“There’s no words to describe how hard this loss has been,” Tiffineee Baker said, adding her 26-year-old son died of fentanyl poisoning after getting addicted to OxyContin.

“I want justice today”

Inside the court, 31 people were allowed to tell their painful stories to the judge both remotely and in person. Michele Wagner was one of them, and she said she was able to speak about how she felt and what happened to her son, Mitchell Harper. Wagner said she’s convinced Harper, who died in 2014, became a heroin addict after using prescription drugs.

She said she tried to save him after an overdose inside a store bathroom.

“I saw his boots,” she said. “My son was alive when I got there, and within the hour, he wasn’t.”

One mother said she lost two children to opioid addiction, and others said they’re dealing with addiction, themselves.

Almost all of them asked the judge to reject the plea deal.

“I want justice today. I want the judge to reject the plea and the DOJ to do their job and prosecute,” said parent Edward Bisch, whose son died.