Purdue Pharma, the company that makes OxyContin, the powerful prescription painkiller that helped touch off an opioid epidemic, will plead guilty to three federal criminal charges as part of a settlement of more than $8 billion, the Associated Press reports. The company will plead guilty to three counts, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and violating federal anti-kickback laws. The deal does not release any of the company’s executives or owners — members of the wealthy Sackler family — from criminal liability. An investigation is ongoing. The settlement is the highest-profile display of the federal government seeking to hold a major drugmaker responsible for an opioid addiction and overdose crisis linked to more than 470,000 deaths in the IU.S. since 2000.
The settlement comes less than two weeks before a presidential election where the opioid epidemic has taken a back seat to the coronavirus pandemic and other issues. The deal gives President Donald Trump’s administration an example of action on the addiction crisis, which he promised early in his term. Purdue will admit that it impeded the Drug Enforcement Administration by falsely representing that it had maintained an effective program to avoid drug diversion and by reporting misleading information to boost the company’s manufacturing quotas. A Justice Department official said Purdue had been representing to the DEA it had “robust controls” to avoid opioid diversion but instead had been “disregarding red flags their own systems were sending up.” Purdue will make a direct payment to the government of $225 million, part of a larger $2 billion criminal forfeiture. Purdue also faces a $3.54 billion criminal fine, though that will not be fully collected because it will be taken through a bankruptcy, which includes a large number of other creditors. Purdue will agree to $2.8 billion in damages to resolve its civil liability.