Purdue Pharma settles Oklahoma OxyContin lawsuit for $270M

Oklahoma’s attorney general has agreed to settle it claims against Purdue Pharma over the company’s alleged role in the nationwide opioid epidemic, according to reports early Tuesday.

The Wall Street Journal said the company has agreed to pay $270 million to settle the Oklahoma claims.

The reports come a day after the Oklahoma Supreme Court denied the company’s efforts to delay what would have been the first trial focusing on the opioid manufacturer’s conduct. The trial had been set to being May 28 in Oklahoma.

Bankruptcy rumors began infiltrating the Oklahoma trial last month, and in early March Reuters first reported that Purdue was exploring bankruptcy to address its growing liabilities over the opioid epidemic. A Chapter 11 filing would halt the lawsuits, folding them into bankruptcy court. Purdue then sought to delay the trial until September, citing a “belated tidal wave of documents.”

Accused of marketing drugs as safe, nonaddictive

The case, filed on 2017, alleged that Purdue and two other opioid manufacturers, Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, helped create an epidemic over the prescription painkillers by marketing them as a safe and nonaddictive treatment for chronic pain.

Purdue’s lawyers in the case are Sanford Coats of Crowe & Dunlevy in Oklahoma City and Mark Cheffo, a partner in Dechert’s New York office.

Neither Purdue nor the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office immediately returned a call for comment Tuesday morning.

This is a developing report.

Related:

• Insurance and the opioid crisis
• Top 10 causes of death: Opioids now kill more people than cars do
• 3 proactive ways to address the opioid crisis in the workplace

Max Mitchell is a reporter with The Legal Intelligencer, focusing on litigation in Pennsylvania with a specific emphasis on Philadelphia courts. Follow him on Twitter @MMitchellTLI.