Purdue Sacklers consider adding another $1 billion to opioid settlement

(Reuters) – Members of the billionaire Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma, are weighing whether to add $1 billion to the OxyContin maker’s faltering opioid settlement offer, aiming to convince the holdouts, Bloomberg News reported Thursday.

The addition would bring the family’s total contribution to $5.325 billion to get a handful of U.S. attorneys general to drop their opposition to Purdue’s bankruptcy plan, according to the report citing people familiar with the matter.

Purdue did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this week, a mediator reported that OxyContin’s maker and U.S. states were “even closer” to a settlement over allegations the company fueled an opioid epidemic in the United States.

The mediator asked the bankruptcy judge to extend the deadline for negotiations from Feb. 7 to Feb. 16, saying both sides needed more time to finalize a deal that would involve “substantial” additional funds from the Sacklers. The new regulation would also include non-monetary concessions.

Purdue, the maker of the highly addictive opioid painkiller OxyContin, filed for bankruptcy in 2019 in the face of thousands of lawsuits accusing it and the wealthy Sackler family members who owned the company of helping to cause the opioid epidemic in the United States thanks to deceptive marketing minimizing addiction. and the risks of overdose.

The company pleaded guilty to misbranding and fraud charges related to the marketing of OxyContin in 2007 and 2020. The Sacklers have denied any wrongdoing.

(Reporting by Radhika Anilkumar in Bangalore; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)