Drugmaker Purdue Pharma is negotiating a multibillion-dollar settlement with lawyers for local and state governments that would resolve about 2,000 lawsuits against the company, which would declare bankruptcy as part of the deal, the Washington Post reported. The Sackler family, which owns the company, would relinquish control and contribute at least $3 billion in personal funds to the settlement, which could total as much as $12 billion. Leaders of the 2,000 plaintiffs in a consolidated lawsuit pending in federal court are seriously considering the offer. The proposed deal, first reported Tuesday by NBC News, has been in the works for months and was discussed at a meeting in Cleveland last week called by U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster, who oversees the sprawling federal lawsuit scheduled to get underway in mid-October. Judge Polster, who has encouraged the parties to settle rather than go to trial, told the parties to report back to him Friday. Details about the talks come a day after an Oklahoma judge found health-care giant Johnson & Johnson responsible for fueling the state’s opioid epidemic and ordered it to pay $572 million to help abate the crisis. In addition to Oklahoma, more than 40 other states have filed lawsuits in their own courts against Purdue and other companies in the pharmaceutical industry. The deal under discussion would cover the federal and state lawsuits, according to sources.
