Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, agrees to $8bn plea deal

The US Justice Department announced Wednesday that Purdue Pharma, the creator of OxyContin, will plead guilty to three federal criminal charges as part of a more than $8bn plea deal.  

The Associated Press were first to report the story.  

According to company officials speaking on condition of anonymity, the company will plead guilty to three charges, which include conspiracy to defraud the US and violating federal anti-kickback laws.  

According to a copy of the plea deal obtained by the AP, the company will admit that it “knowingly and intentionally conspired and agreed with others to aid and abet  dispending drugs through complicit doctors "without a legimitate medical purpose and outside the usual course of professional practice."

The plea deal will not release any of the company's owners or executives from criminal liability. Purdue Pharma will be dissolved as part of the deal and its assets used to create a government-controlled company.  

The settlement is the most significant reckoning a drug company has faced since the federal government began its campaign to criminally charge companies that contributed to the opioid epidemic.  

Though the opioid epidemic has largely fallen out of public consciousness due to the ever worsening coronavirus pandemic, the spate of addictions and overdoses tied to opioid use is linked to 470,000 deaths.  

Part of the agreement requires Purdue to admit that it impeded the US Drug Enforcement Administration's regulatory functions by misrepresenting its drug diversion program and reporting misleading information to the DEA to boost its production quotas.  

Purdue allegedly tried to convince the DEA that it had "robust controls" in place to avoid opioid diversion while it was ignoring problems within the company.  

Purdue also allegedly paid doctors to participate in speaking programs with the understanding that they write more prescriptions for pain medication, according to the officials.  

The company will make a direct payment to the US government of $225m, which is a part of its overall $2bn criminal forfeiture.  

It will eventually become a public benefit company guided by a trust ensuring the company will only act in the interest of the American public and of public health.  

The family that owns Purdue Pharma, the Sacklers, will not be involved in the new company.  

Money from the settlement will go to help assist those hurt by the opioid epidemic and to drug programs working to combat addiction and prevent overdoses.  

Democrats have pushed US Attorney General William Barr not to make a deal with the Sacklers for fear that it sends a message to the US public that billionaires and corporations can cause pain and death on massive scales and escape any severe punishment for their actions.  

"Millions of American families impacted by the opioid epidemic are looking to you and your Department for justice," a group of 38 Congressional Democrats wrote in a letter to Mr Barr. "If the only practical consequence of your Department's investigation is that a handful of billionaires are made slightly less rich, we fear that the American people will lose faith in the ability of the Department to provide accountability and equal justice under the law."