Drug maker settles suit over marketing of OxyContin

HARTFORD, Conn. — Drug maker Purdue Pharma L.P. has agreed to pay $19.5 million to 26 states and the District of Columbia, including Washington and Idaho, to settle complaints over its promotion of the powerful painkiller OxyContin, the company said Tuesday.

The states complained that Purdue encouraged physicians to prescribe OxyContin for use every eight hours, rather than the 12-hour dose approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“The states alleged Purdue’s sales representatives promoted OxyContin, a potent painkiller with addictive qualities similar to morphine, to a wide variety of doctors while downplaying known health and safety risks,” said Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna in a news release. “As a condition of this settlement, Purdue agrees to establish a training program for its sales employees and to market OxyContin for federally approved uses.”

Washington and Idaho will each receive $719,000 as a result of the agreement.

OxyContin is a time-release painkiller that can be highly addictive. Designed to be swallowed whole and digested over 12 hours, the pills can produce a heroin-like high if crushed and then swallowed, snorted or injected.

Among other things, the settlement requires Purdue to abide by warnings on a packaging insert, stop marketing the drug for use in ways other than approved by the FDA, and improve internal controls

“It has always been Purdue’s written policy that promotion of its products must adhere to FDA-approved prescribing information for those products as well as applicable laws,” the Stamford-based company said in a statement.

The settlement also resolves allegations that Purdue Pharma failed to fully disclose the abuse risks of Oxycontin, Blumenthal said.

The other states taking part in the settlement are Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Each state’s portion of the money may be used as it deems necessary, according to the Washington attorney general’s news release. The money may be used for consumer protection education and outreach programs, litigation, attorneys’ fees or other uses. The agreements don’t establish a refund program for individual consumers, the release said.