Purdue Pharma reportedly offers $10–$12 billion to settle more than 2,000 opioid cases

The Sackler family is reportedly set to settle all its suits at once.

The Sackler-owned Purdue Pharma has agreed to offer $10–12 billion to settle cases involving its role in the opioid crisis, two people familiar with the deal tell NBC News. The more than 2,000 cases encompassed by the deal are from cities, states, and other municipalities who say the company facilitated the opioid outbreak across the U.S.

The collection of suits largely blame Purdue's sale and manufacture of opioids, but levy some individual allegations against the Sacklers and Purdue. Some suits simply allege Purdue used deceptive marketing practices to further the opioid epidemic, while Massachusetts' suit directly names members of the Sackler family. The reported $10–12 billion would cover all of these suits, and recipients would likely put the funds toward opioid prevention and rehabilitation. More than $4 billion would be go directly toward purchasing other drugs, some of which are used to save people from fatal overdoses, NBC News says.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The report comes just a day after Johnson & Johnson was ruled to be responsible for the opioid outbreak in Oklahoma and ordered to pay $572 million — far less than the $17 billion Oklahoma originally wanted. Purdue Pharma had previously reached a $270 million settlement with Oklahoma in that case, which was the first of more than 2,000 opioid suits to go to trial.