Purdue Pharma LLP said that its decision on whether to file for bankruptcy to avoid being swamped by opioid lawsuits doesn’t depend on the timing of the first trial over its role in the public-health crisis, Bloomberg News reported. A judge in Oklahoma Friday refused Purdue’s, Johnson & Johnson’s and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.’s requests to push back a May trial of Oklahoma officials’ suit seeking to recover as much as $25 billion in current and future costs of dealing with the opioid epidemic. The makers of opioid-based painkillers said pre-trial information exchanges have bogged down and there’s no way they can be ready to face a state court jury in Norman, Oklahoma by May 28. Judge Thad Balkman rebuffed companies’ request, saying the case needed to move forward. Balkman also denied the companies’ request to stay the trial while they asked the state’s appellate courts to review his ruling. Purdue executives said on Friday that the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office has failed to turn over thousands of documents needed for trial and that “unfairly prejudiced Purdue’s ability to adequately prepare our defenses,” said Robert Josephson, a company spokesman.
