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The Sackler family, which grew into one of the nation’s wealthiest dynasties through sales of the widely abused painkiller OxyContin, could emerge from a legal settlement under negotiation with its personal fortunes largely intact, according to an analysis reviewed by The Washington Post and people familiar with the discussions. Under a novel plan to relinquish control of their company, Purdue Pharma, and resurrect it as a trust whose main purpose would be to combat the opioid epidemic, the Sacklers could raise most, if not all, of their personal share of the $10 billion to $12 billion agreement by selling their international drug conglomerate, Mundipharma, according to the documents and those close to the talks. (Bernstein, Davis, Rowland and Merle, 8/31)

Purdue Pharma’s negotiations to settle thousands of lawsuits over the company’s role in the opioids crisis have turned into a standoff between members of the Sackler family, who own the company, and a group of state attorneys general over how much the family should pay and whether it can continue selling drugs abroad. The Sacklers are deep in negotiations that, if finalized, would force them to give up ownership of Purdue, the company widely blamed for the onset of the opioid epidemic with its aggressive marketing of the prescription painkiller OxyContin. But they want to keep selling OxyContin and other drugs abroad for as many as seven more years, through another company they own, Mundipharma, based in Cambridge, England. (Goldstein, Hakim and Hoffman, 8/30)

Upcoming trials seen as test cases for forcing drugmakers to pay for societal damage inflicted by the opioid epidemic should be delayed until Ohio’s own lawsuits against the drugmakers can be heard, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost argued in a lawsuit. Yost, a Republican, said attempts to force drugmakers to pay should come in a single state action to allow equal distribution of money across Ohio. His lawsuit, filed Friday in federal appeals court in Cincinnati, comes amidst urgent negotiations over a potentially massive settlement between drugmakers and thousands of communities across the country. (Welsh-Huggins, 9/1)

Virtually every state has filed a lawsuit in the past two years, along with some 2,000 cities, counties and Native American tribes, alleging players in the pharmaceutical supply chain are to blame for fueling widespread opioid addiction. The situation has been particularly fractious in Ohio. Friday’s filing argues if the two counties are allowed to take their cases to trial, it “would fragment the State’s claims, pose a high risk of inconsistent verdicts, result in duplicative or overlapping damages, and misallocate funds in the State.” (Randazzo, 8/30)

Allergan said it agreed to pay $5 million to settle its part of a landmark federal opioid trial slated to begin in Cleveland in October. The Dublin-based pharmaceuticals company said it would pay $1.9 million to Summit County, Ohio, and $3.1 million to Cuyahoga County, Ohio, the two plaintiffs whose claims were chosen to serve as bellwethers in sprawling litigation over the opioid epidemic. Pharmaceutical company Endo International PLC earlier this month reached a $10 million settlement with the counties in the litigation. (Kellaher, 9/30)