It's all over.
Or is it?
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain recently placed his stamp of approval on a settlement among members of the Sackler family who own Purdue Pharma LP and a handful of states that had been fighting its multibillion-dollar opioid deal.
The new deal is “a remarkable and in general very positive development in this case,” Drain said in the bankruptcy court.
Still, in the larger snapshot of the landscape, broader ramifications of accusations against Purdue Pharma and the opioid crisis remain.
At least on the surface, the agreement marks a significant moment in the national opioid litigation, an effort by state, local, and tribal governments to hold companies across the vast pharmaceutical industry accountable for the crisis of opioid addiction that led to at least 500,000 deaths since 1999.
While the Sacklers, heirs to the Purdue empire, have neither accepted personal responsibility nor issued a personal...