Purdue Pharma owners up opioid settlement offer to $6 bn

The owners of Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, have offered to pay up to $6 billion to victims of the US opioid crisis to settle an avalanche of litigation, according to a report filed Friday by a federal mediator.

The Sackler family’s new offer would raise by at least a billion dollars a $4.5 billion bankruptcy settlement thrown out by a US judge in December over language that would have shielded the family from further lawsuits involving the highly addictive prescription painkiller.

Under the new proposal, the Sacklers “would be paying, in total, not less than $5.5 billion and up to $6 billion”, according to Friday’s filing to the US Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York.