Makers of OxyContin, accused of fueling opioid crisis, to pay $270 million in U.S. settlement: source

Hunter scheduled a news conference for Tuesday to announce a “breaking development” in the lawsuit. A spokesman for Hunter declined to comment while a lawyer for Purdue did not respond to a request for comment.WATCH: For more than five years he was addicted to opioids. This is one man’s story of recovery A trial judge earlier this month rejected the companies’ efforts to delay the trial. On Monday, the Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected their appeal of that decision.Of roughly 2,000 lawsuits nationally, more than 1,600 are in federal court and the rest are in state courts. The 1,600 lawsuits were consolidated before a federal judge in Ohio, who has pushed for a settlement ahead of a trial in October.Stamford, Connecticut-based Purdue has been exploring filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to address potential liabilities stemming from the lawsuits, people familiar with the matter have told Reuters.WATCH: OxyContin will stop marketing its powerful drug to doctors Purdue‘s settlement with Oklahoma relieves the immediate pressure on the drugmaker for a bankruptcy filing, said Alexandra Lahav, a professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law. She said the company likely was also in talks with others to settle.“This may be the start of the dominoes falling for Purdue,” Lahav said.READ MORE: ‘Marijuana is the new Oxycontin’: Should we be concerned with how docs are learning about pot?Opioids, including prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl, were involved in a record 47,600 overdose deaths in 2017 in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The epidemic has prompted lawsuits by state and local governments accusing various drugmakers of contributing to the crisis, including Purdue, which introduced the painkiller OxyContin in 1996.Purdue has held discussions to resolve the litigation with plaintiffs’ lawyers, who have often compared the cases to widespread lawsuits against the tobacco industry that resulted in a $246 billion settlement in 1998.READ MORE: Opioids could be lurking in your child’s cough medicine, Health Canada warnsPaul Hanly, a lead lawyer for the plaintiffs in the federal opioid litigation, said they are “hopeful that the Oklahoma settlement is the beginning of a good-faith program on the part of Purdue to settle all of the nationwide litigation.”