Purdue Pharma Proposes a Plan to Come Out of Bankruptcy

Purdue Pharma is proposing a $10 billion plan to be transformed into a different company and emerge from bankruptcy. The company had helped revolutionize the prescription painkiller business with its OxyContin drug. The company wishes to funnel profits into the fight against the nation’s intractable opioid crisis.

Those efforts would significantly boost more than $4 billion from the Salcker family members who own the pharmaceutical giant. Late Monday night in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in White Plains, N.Y., the plan was filed after months of negotiations. The plan marks the company’s formal offer to settle more than 2,900 lawsuits from state and local governments, hospitals, and other entities.

Chairman of Purdue’s Board of Directors, Steve Miller, said in a statement, “Purdue Pharma has delivered a historic plan that can have a profoundly positive impact on public health by directing critically-needed resources to communities and individuals nationwide who have been affected by the opioid crisis.”

Most of the parties in the case with the plan are on board. The attorney general representing 23 states and the District of Columbia issued a statement saying that the offer is faking short of the accountability that the survivors and families deserve. They want the Sackler family members to need to pay more money to them. They also wish Purdue Pharma to wind down in a way that does not entangle with the states excessively.

Most Democratic attorney generals across the U.S. and Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, a Republican, are included in the group.