PURDUE PHARMA AND OXYCOTIN

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/doj-settle-maker-oxycontin-role-opioid-crisis/story?id=73735542

DOJ makes $8B settlement with Purdue Pharma, OxyContin manufacturer, for role in opioid crisis

The company has been widely blamed for fueling the nation’s opioid epidemic.

 the nation's opioid crisis that has been blamed for more than 400,000 American deaths in the last 20 years.


The settlement resolves criminal and civil investigations into how Purdue Pharma aggressively marketed its powerful painkillers but the staggering amount is largely symbolic. The company is tied up in bankruptcy proceedings and lacks the assets to pay the full amount.
The Sacklers, the wealthy family that controls the company, will separately pay $225 million to resolve civil claims.
The settlement agreement does not prevent family members or company executives from being prosecuted in the future.


We reached today’s agreement in order to facilitate a global resolution that directs substantial funding to communities in need, rather than to years of legal proceedings," the statement continued.



The company is pleading guilty on three counts: one charge of defrauding the United States and two anti-kickback-related charges.

"Purdue deeply regrets and accepts responsibility for the misconduct detailed by the Department of Justice in the agreed statement of facts," said Stephen Miller, Purdue Pharma's chairman of the board in a statement released Wednesday.


The company will operate under different ownership, will be overseen by new trustees and will offer "milllions of doses of livesaving opioid addiction treatment and overdose" medicine for free or "at cost," per the company's statement.
"The department will not relent to combat the opioid problem," Deputy Attorney General Jeffery Rosen said at a press conference on Wednesday.


Rosen said that according to the plea agreement, and subject to bankruptcy court approval, Purdue Pharma will be "be dissolved and won't exist in its current form."


LAWSUITS will go on!