Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family pay settlement over OyContin crisis

Also, in the U.S., Purdue Pharma and its owners, the Sackler family, on Thursday, agreed to a 7.4 billion U.S. dollar settlement, to resolve numerous lawsuits alleging their role in the U.S. opioid crisis through the marketing of their product, OxyContin.

Under the settlement terms, the Sacklers will pay 6.5 billion U.S. dollars over 15 years, and give up their ownership of Purdue Pharma.

An additional 900 million U.S. dollars will come from Purdue itself.

The agreement follows the U.S. Supreme Court's rejection of a 6 billion dollar settlement that would have granted the Sacklers immunity from future civil lawsuits.

The new settlement does not provide such immunity.

The OxyContin crisis led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and addictions in the U.S. since the drug's release in 1996.

The Sackler family continues to deny any wrongdoing.