If the settlement goes away, it is the first major settlement regarding the opiate crisis and the amount of SEK 100 billion would also be the largest amount of damages paid out in the US pharmaceutical industry.

The agreement, which should have been reached out of court, is a way for Purdie Pharma to avoid thousands of lawsuits from various players.

Purdue Pharma produces Oxycontin, one of the drugs that caused the greatest damage in the opioid epidemic. The abuse of opioid-based drugs is estimated to have led to up to 400,000 deaths since the late 1990s, US authorities report.

Billions in damages for seven years

According to Reuters and The New York Times, the settlement between Purdue Pharma and local authorities means the drug giant is filing for bankruptcy and ceasing to exist as a company in its current form. Furthermore, the owners of Purdue, the Sackler family, will pay three billion dollars, approximately SEK 29 billion, in damages for seven years.

A new company will then continue to sell the medicine Oxycotin where all profits will be donated to, among other things, victims of the medicine. The Sackler family will also donate the drugs to opioid addiction that Purdue Pharma currently produces and sells to the company.

Last month, another state-owned drug company, Johnson & Johnson, was sentenced by a state court to pay more than $ 5 billion for the damages caused by the company's opiate-based medication only in the state of Oklahoma.