On June 27, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to reject the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy settlement that would have provided the Sackler family immunity from future opioid-related lawsuits in exchange for paying up to $6 billion. Justice Neil Gorsuch’s majority opinion held that “the …
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On May 30, 2023, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon’s December 2021 ruling, holding that bankruptcy courts do have authority to approve non-consensual third-party releases. The divided 2-1 decision reinstated the Purdue Pharma …
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On December 16, 2021, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen McMahon overturned the controversial bankruptcy settlement that would have granted the Sackler family immunity from opioid-related lawsuits in exchange for $4.5 billion. Judge McMahon ruled that bankruptcy courts do not have the authority to …
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On September 1, 2021, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Drain approved a bankruptcy settlement granting the Sackler family “global peace” from civil liability for the opioid epidemic, despite vigorous opposition from the Department of Justice and nine state attorneys general. The ruling …
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On October 21, 2020, the Department of Justice announced a settlement totaling more than $8 billion with Purdue Pharma—touted as the largest penalties ever levied against a pharmaceutical manufacturer—yet the settlement allowed the Sackler family to keep the vast majority of billions extracted from …
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Documents released in late 2020 in federal bankruptcy court revealed that elite management consulting firm McKinsey & Company worked closely with Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family, developing detailed plans to “turbocharge” OxyContin sales at a time when opioid abuse had already …
On September 15, 2019, Purdue Pharma filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after facing thousands of lawsuits from states, local governments, Native American tribes, and victims related to the opioid crisis. The bankruptcy filing was a strategic maneuver designed to shield the billionaire …
West Virginia emerged as the epicenter of the opioid crisis, with the highest rate of drug overdose deaths in 2015 at 41.5 deaths per 100,000 people—nearly three times the national average. From 2007 to 2012, drug wholesalers shipped 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to the state, …
On April 5, 2010, the FDA approved Purdue Pharma’s reformulated OxyContin designed to make it more difficult to crush, snort, or inject—14 years after the original drug’s launch and three years after the company’s guilty plea to criminal misbranding. Purdue ceased shipping the old …
On May 10, 2007, Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to a felony charge of illegally misbranding OxyContin in an effort to mislead and defraud physicians and agreed to pay $600 million—representing approximately 90 percent of OxyContin profits during the offense period. The company admitted to misleading …
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Between 2005 and 2024, the United States operated a two-tiered bankruptcy system that weaponized debt against students and working Americans while preserving bankruptcy as a strategic wealth-preservation tool for corporations and the wealthy—a defining example of 21st century American kleptocracy. …
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Purdue Pharma’s lucrative bonus system paid sales representatives an average of $71,500 in annual bonuses—more than their $55,000 base salary—with bonuses ranging from $15,000 to nearly $240,000. In 2001 alone, Purdue paid $40 million in sales incentive bonuses, systematically incentivizing …
Between 2000 and 2020, approximately 500,000 Americans died from opioid-involved overdoses, representing one of the most devastating preventable public health catastrophes in American history. The death toll resulted from a combination of aggressive pharmaceutical marketing, regulatory capture, and …
Purdue Pharma launched the most aggressive marketing campaign ever undertaken for a narcotic drug, introducing OxyContin with false claims about addiction risk. At the 1996 launch party, Dr. Richard Sackler predicted the debut would “be followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury …
The FDA approved Purdue Pharma’s OxyContin application, including a scientifically unsubstantiated claim that delayed absorption ‘is believed to reduce the abuse liability of a drug.’ This approval occurred without clinical trials to prove the safety claim and marked the beginning …
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In a landmark case of regulatory capture, Dr. Curtis Wright IV, leading the FDA’s Division of Anesthetic, Critical Care, and Addiction Drug Products, approved OxyContin with controversial language that misrepresented the drug’s addictive potential. Wright held private meetings with …
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