West Virginia to receive more than $50 million
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Today, Attorney General JB McCuskey announced that a $7.4 billion settlement reached with Purdue Pharma and its owners, the Sackler family, has become legally effective, capping nearly a decade of work by attorneys general from across the country.
The attorneys general launched a multistate investigation of Purdue in 2016, uncovering the company and the Sacklers’ role in fueling the opioid crisis.
Facing massive legal troubles, Purdue filed bankruptcy in September 2019. The attorneys general took a lead role in the bankruptcy proceedings, including negotiating a new settlement that obtained more money from the Sacklers. The settlement gives funds to communities across the country, as well as individual victims and other groups who filed claims in the bankruptcy proceedings.
“The Sacklers and Purdue Pharma built an empire by aggressively marketing opioids and downplaying addiction risks, even as they watched the death toll climb. Their only concern was pushing more pills and getting rich. They chose profits over people, fueling an opioid crisis that has devastated families and broken communities in West Virginia. Now, despite their best efforts to avoid accountability, they are finally paying up. The Sacklers and Purdue Pharma may not face the kind of accountability many believe they deserve in this system, and no settlement can fully answer for the harm that was done, but courts aren’t the only place where reckoning happens. One day, they will have to answer for what they did—and that is a judgment no bankruptcy can shield them from,” Attorney General McCuskey said.
Fifty-five attorneys general representing all eligible U.S. states and territories previously signed onto the settlement. It resolves litigation against Purdue and the Sacklers for producing and aggressively marketing opioids in the United States, fueling the largest drug crisis in the country’s history.
The settlement permanently bars the Sacklers from selling opioids in the U.S. Over $50 million is scheduled to be paid to West Virginia on an accelerated, 9-year timeline due to the disproportionate impact the opioid crisis has had on West Virginia. Other states will receive payments over 15 years.
The Sacklers are paying more than $1.5 billion today, followed by an approximate additional $500 million in May 2027, $500 million in May 2028, and $400 million in May 2029. Additionally, Purdue is paying approximately $900 million today.
The settlement also means that Purdue’s manufacturing operations transfer, effective today, to Knoa Pharma LLC, which will be overseen by a board of directors who had no connection to Purdue. The settlement prevents Knoa from marketing opioids and provides for an independent monitor to ensure it provides these medicines in the safest possible manner that limits the risk of diversion.
The settlement also provides Purdue and the Sacklers will make public more than 30 million documents related to their opioid business.
The money from the Purdue settlement will be distributed under the terms of the West Virginia First Memorandum of Understanding—to date the amount of settlements from opioid litigation within West Virginia totals more than $1 billion.