Members of the billionaire Sackler family that own Purdue Pharma LP are weighing whether to add $1 billion to the OxyContin-maker’s faltering opioid settlement bid in an effort to win over holdouts, Bloomberg News reported. The move would bring the family’s total contribution to $5.325 billion to get a handful of state attorneys general to drop their opposition to Purdue’s bankruptcy plan. In return, the states would abandon appeals of the Sacklers’ demands to be freed from liability in current and future opioid lawsuits. Purdue and other companies involved in the opioid industry face thousands of lawsuits by states and municipalities that allege they helped create a crisis that’s claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in the U.S. Most of the cases are still pending, though some companies, including Johnson & Johnson and McKesson Corp., have proposed broad settlements. The latest development is a result of court-ordered mediation that came after a judge in December threw out the original settlement deal over litigation releases granted to Sackler family members. That ruling came after some states appealed the deal, saying Purdue’s owners shouldn’t get lifetime immunity from suits targeting them for the company’s role in the U.S. opioid epidemic. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Shelley Chapman — serving as mediator in the Purdue case — said earlier this week the family and states are “even closer” to a deal than before. Chapman asked Judge Robert Drain, who is overseeing Purdue’s bankruptcy, to extend the mediation to Feb. 16.
