David Sackler testifies via video to a House Oversight Committee hearing (House Television via AP)

Sack­lers win im­mu­ni­ty from opi­oid law­suits as Pur­due Phar­ma is dis­solved in bank­rupt­cy set­tle­ment

The long-run­ning bat­tle in­volv­ing the Sack­ler fam­i­ly, own­ers of Pur­due Phar­ma, and law­suits over their role in the opi­oid epi­dem­ic drew to a close Wednes­day, with the com­pa­ny dis­solved and the Sack­lers ab­solved from li­a­bil­i­ty.

A bank­rupt­cy court in south­ern New York ap­proved the set­tle­ment deal, which came af­ter much con­ster­na­tion from crit­ics say­ing it didn’t go far enough in hold­ing the Sack­lers ac­count­able. The fam­i­ly will pay about $4.5 bil­lion over the next nine years in ex­change for the pro­tec­tions, and Pur­due Phar­ma will be trans­formed in­to a pub­lic ben­e­fits com­pa­ny aimed at fight­ing the opi­oid cri­sis that has led to more than 500,000 deaths in the US.

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