By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Purdue Pharma and the thousands of state
and local governments suing the maker of OxyContin over the nation's deadly
opioid crisis are negotiating a $10 billion to $12 billion settlement under
which the Sackler family would give up ownership of the company, according to
published reports.
Under the proposal now on the table, the Sacklers would
contribute $3 billion of their own money toward the total, and the company
would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and transform itself into a "public
beneficiary trust," with all profits from drug sales going to the
plaintiffs, The New York Times reported Wednesday. It said a document outlining
the tentative agreement was described to the newspaper.
Also, Purdue Pharma would supply its addiction treatment
drugs free to the public, and the Sacklers would sell another pharmaceutical
company, Mundipharma, which would add $1.5 billion to the settlement, the Times
said.
In a statement, the Stamford, Connecticut-based company did
not confirm any of the details — some of them also reported by NBC — but said
it sees little good in years of "wasteful litigation and appeals."
"Purdue believes a constructive global resolution is
the best path forward, and the company is actively working with the state
attorneys general and other plaintiffs to achieve this outcome," it said.
Paul Farrell Jr., a lead plaintiffs' lawyer representing
local governments, said all sides remain under a gag order: "All we can
confirm is that we are in active settlement discussions with Purdue."
Attorneys general representing several states also confirmed
the accelerated negotiations.
"Our mission here has always been clear — make Purdue
Pharma and the other manufacturers and distributors pay for what they did to
Pennsylvania and its people, and put the Sackler family out of the opioid
business for good," said Jacklin Rhoads, spokeswoman for Pennsylvania
Attorney General Josh Shapiro, whose office is taking part in the Cleveland
negotiations.
The settlement talks involve more than 2,000 lawsuits
against the company and other players in the painkiller industry over the
opioid overdose epidemic that has killed more than 400,000 people in the U.S.
since 2000 and torn apart communities. The first federal trial over the
devastating toll is scheduled to start in Cleveland in two months.
Purdue has been cast by attorneys and addiction experts as a
chief villain in the crisis. While its painkillers represent a very small piece
of the opioid market, the lawsuits accuse it of playing a central role in
creating demand for the drugs by downplaying OxyContin's addiction risks and
pushing doctors hard to prescribe it.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement
that the Sackler family "started a national fire" and has "made
billions profiting from death and destruction."
The Sacklers were ranked America's 19th-richest family by
Forbes magazine in 2016, with a net worth estimated at $13 billion.
In March, Purdue and the Sackler family reached a $270
million settlement with Oklahoma over the opioid scourge.
On Monday, an Oklahoma judge found Johnson & Johnson
responsible for fueling the state's opioid crisis and ordered the maker of such
familiar household products as Band-Aids and baby powder to pay $572 million to
help clean up the problem.
It was the first opioid lawsuit brought against the industry
by a state to go to trial, and activists expressed hope the verdict would turn
up the pressure on other companies to settle.
Members of the Sackler family are major philanthropists who
have given money to cultural institutions around the world, including the
Smithsonian Institution, New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art and
London's Tate Modern. But in recent months, institutions have come under
pressure to sever ties to the Sacklers and take the family name off their
walls.
Associated Press
writers Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and Marc Levy in
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.
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