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The effort to hold drug companies, pharmacies and distributors accountable for their role in the opioid crisis has led to a whirlwind of legal activity around the U.S. that can be difficult keep tabs on.
Three trials are underway now, in Florida, West Virginia and Washington state. New legal settlements are being reached practically every week to provide governments money to fight the crisis and in some cases funds for medicines to reverse overdoses or to help with treatment.
In all, more than 3,000 lawsuits have been filed by state and local governments, Native American tribes, unions, hospitals and other entities in state and federal courts over the toll of opioids. Most allege the industry created a public nuisance in a crisis that has been linked to the deaths of 500,000 Americans over the past two decades.
Collectively, businesses already have faced settlements, judgements and civil and criminal penalties totaling more than $47 billion. The main entities targeted are the companies that manufactured and sold the pills; the businesses that distributed them; and the pharmacies that dispensed them.
Here’s an overview of the litigation and settlements involving the various companies:
Purdue Pharma
Purdue is the maker of OxyContin, an extended-release version of oxycodone that packed higher doses into pills. The drug, released in 1996, became a heavily marketed blockbuster drug — and is associated closely with the epidemic’s first wave.
Like other opioids, it was promoted not just for post-surgery and cancer pain but for chronic pain — an area where doctors previously were reluctant to prescribe such powerful drugs.
Faced with thousands of lawsuits, the company went into bankruptcy protection in 2019 to help reach a settlement.
A deal is now in place, but it’s not final.
It calls for members of the Sackler family who own the company to give up their stakes, making way for it to become a new entity — to be known as Knoa Pharma — with profits funding the fight against the opioid crisis. Additionally, family members are to pay $5.5 billion to $6 billion over time, with a portion of the money going to victims.
Earlier this year, three members of the family attended an online hearing in which parents described losing children to addictions that started with OxyContin, and people recovering from addictions described their journeys.
As part of the exchange, Sackler family members would get protection from lawsuits over opioids.
For the settlement to be finalized, a higher court must overturn a judge’s ruling that threw out an earlier version of the deal. A hearing on that is scheduled for April 29 before the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.
In the meantime, activists and some U.S. senators are asking the Justice Department to consider charges against family members.
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