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Photo: GEORGE FREY / REUTERS
The US pharmaceutical company Purdue wants to settle thousands of lawsuits over its addictive pain reliever Oxycontin and come back from bankruptcy with a new recovery plan.
The draft submitted to the bankruptcy court in New York stipulates that Purdue's owner family, the Sackler, will pay just under $ 4.3 billion as part of the settlement.
That would be around $ 1.3 billion more than the previous offer, which many plaintiffs rejected as being too low.
Overall, the volume of the comparison package should be more than ten billion dollars.
Purdue and the Sacklers have been accused of using reckless and aggressive methods to market pain relievers while masking the dangers of addiction.
From the point of view of the plaintiffs and experts, this laid an essential cornerstone for the devastating opioid epidemic in the United States, which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from overdoses in recent years.
Opioids such as Oxycontin are drugs with, among other things, pain-relieving properties, but with which there are also enormous risks of dependence and high potential for abuse.
Nearly 3,000 lawsuits are pending against Purdue and the Sacklers in the US from states, counties and cities.
In a separate process, the company concluded a controversial settlement with the US government in October 2020, which has a volume of 8.3 billion dollars, but the bottom line is likely to be much lower.
Purdue filed for bankruptcy protection in September 2019.
Critics see it as a maneuver to get out of responsibility.
The insolvency plan provides that the company will be transferred to a foundation and future income will be used to alleviate the pain medication crisis.
The Sacklers should no longer have any control.
Nevertheless, not all plaintiffs are satisfied by a long way.
New York Attorney General Letitia James spoke of progress compared to the first draft, but was still disappointed.
The relatives of opioid victims earned more, James said.
"The Sacklers and Purdue must now stand by their decades of misconduct and their role in creating this crisis."
The scandal brought the Sackler clan, long known for its patronage, heavily into criticism.
Large museums like the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Tate Modern in London and the Louvre in Paris ended the collaboration with the family.
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fdi / dpa
