Purdue Pharma Settlement: $7.4 Billion Plan for States and Victims

The Purdue Pharma settlement is a $7.4 billion resolution of opioid litigation against the maker of OxyContin and its owners, the Sackler family, that took legal effect on May 1, 2026. Most of the money funds state, local, and tribal addiction treatment, prevention, and recovery programs, with $870 million set aside for individual victims. Purdue Pharma dissolved on the effective date, and the Sacklers agreed to pay up to $6.5 billion over 15 years without receiving blanket immunity from future opioid lawsuits.¹

How the $7.4 Billion Is Structured

The money comes from two sources on two very different timelines.¹

Purdue Pharma paid approximately $900 million on the May 1, 2026 effective date.
The Sackler family will pay up to $6.5 billion over 15 years. More than $1.5 billion was paid on the effective date, with roughly $500 million due in May 2027, $500 million in May 2028, and $400 million in May 2029.

Most of the money is earmarked for opioid abatement and is scheduled to reach communities within the first three years, even though the full Sackler payment window runs 15 years. Funds flow through nine trusts serving different creditor groups, including state and local governments, tribes, hospitals, and individual victims.²

What States and Local Governments Receive

Fifty-five attorneys general representing every eligible state and U.S. territory signed on, along with roughly 9,300 local governments. More than 99% of voting creditors approved the plan.³ Individual state shares have been reported publicly by the attorneys general negotiating them:

State-level disbursements to local governments are expected to begin in late 2026. The initial $900 million from Purdue and more than $1.5 billion from the Sacklers were paid into the trust structure on the effective date.⁴

Separately, the settlement requires Purdue and the Sacklers to release more than 30 million internal documents from their opioid business. Those documents are being added to the public Opioid Industry Documents Archive at the University of California–San Francisco.⁴

Individual Victim Claims

Of the $7.4 billion total, $870 million was set aside for individual personal injury victims and is being administered by the Purdue Personal Injury Trust.⁵ The Trust handles two categories:

Non-NAS claims, for people injured by their own prescribed use of Purdue opioids before September 15, 2019.
NAS claims, for children injured by intrauterine exposure to opioids, including those diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome.

To qualify, a claimant had to file a Proof of Claim in the bankruptcy case (the general deadline ran in 2020 and 2021) and then submit a detailed Claim Form with supporting evidence by July 28, 2025. Non-NAS claimants need proof of a qualifying Purdue prescription — pharmacy records, prescription bottles, or medical records. NAS claimants need documentation from a licensed medical provider linking the child’s condition to prenatal opioid exposure.⁶⁷

Nearly 140,000 people filed initial claims, but only about 63,000 submitted the required evidence by the July 2025 deadline. In May 2026 a judge approved a motion to expunge most of the roughly 80,000 individuals who missed filing deadlines.⁵ The PI Trust, overseen by administrator Ed Gentle, has been issuing deficiency notices giving claimants 30 days to cure problems. As of mid-2026, no individual payments had been made; the Trust said award amounts cannot be determined until all claims are finalized for eligibility.⁶

Why Individual Payouts Are Small

Estimated payments for fatal overdose claims dropped from $48,000 under earlier versions of the plan to as little as $8,000 under the approved version, which sets an $8,000 minimum payment for qualifying claimants.⁵

Documentation is a central barrier. The revised plan eliminated a previous option to submit a sworn affidavit in place of physical prescription or medical records. Pharmacies and doctors’ offices typically retain records for only a few years, so many people harmed in the early 2000s cannot produce proof of Purdue prescriptions. The plan also excluded compensation for teenagers who obtained Purdue drugs through street purchases rather than prescriptions.⁵ During the criminal sentencing, U.S. District Judge Madeline Cox Arleo ordered bankruptcy lawyers to establish alternative verification methods for victims who cannot produce decades-old records.⁸

Attorney fees further reduce what victims receive. Some plaintiff firms contracted for contingency fees of up to 40% of a client’s individual award. In related opioid bankruptcy settlements, some claimants have reported receiving only a few hundred dollars after administrative costs and legal fees.⁹

Why the Plan Had to Be Rewritten

Purdue filed for Chapter 11 in September 2019 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.¹⁰ In September 2021, Judge Robert D. Drain confirmed a $5.5 billion plan that would have shielded the Sacklers from future opioid lawsuits, even though the family had not filed for bankruptcy themselves.

On June 27, 2024, the Supreme Court struck that down in Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P., ruling 5–4 that the Bankruptcy Code does not authorize nonconsensual third-party releases of the kind granted to the Sacklers.¹¹ Justice Gorsuch, writing for the majority, said the Sacklers sought the benefit of a bankruptcy discharge without putting “all their assets on the table.”¹²

After the ruling, mediators led fresh negotiations, and in January 2025 the Sackler family groups agreed to contribute $6.5 billion, an increase of $1 billion over the rejected proposal.² The critical change was replacing nonconsensual releases with an opt-in system. Claimants who opted in to releases against the Sacklers by a March 1, 2026 deadline became eligible for distributions from the full settlement pool. Those who did not opt in kept the right to sue the Sacklers directly, but could share only in Purdue’s own $900 million contribution.¹³ U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean H. Lane confirmed the revised plan on November 18, 2025.¹⁴

What Happens to Purdue and the Sacklers

Purdue Pharma dissolved on May 1, 2026. Its manufacturing operations transferred to Knoa Pharma LLC, a new company wholly owned by the not-for-profit Knoa Foundation, a 501(c)(4) organization with no prior connection to Purdue.¹⁵ Knoa continues to manufacture existing medicines, including opioid analgesics, but under a court-ordered injunction it cannot market opioids, cannot tie employee compensation to opioid sales metrics, cannot lobby, and must submit to an independent monitor. Excess revenue beyond operating needs goes to opioid abatement, and the company provides overdose reversal agents and opioid use disorder medicines at or below cost.³

The Sacklers are permanently barred from selling opioids in the United States and no longer have any involvement in the successor company.¹⁶ They did not receive blanket civil immunity: parties who opted in to the deal cannot sue them for opioid-related claims, but parties who declined to opt in retain that right. The settlement establishes a legal fund of up to $800 million to cover the family’s costs defending future opioid litigation from non-opting parties.¹⁷

No individual Sackler family members or Purdue executives were criminally charged. Purdue itself pleaded guilty in 2020 to a three-count felony information covering conspiracy to defraud the DEA and two counts of conspiracy to violate the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute.¹⁸ In late April 2026, Judge Arleo approved the criminal sentence, which reduced the original $8.3 billion in criminal penalties to a $225 million payment as part of the broader multi-party settlement.⁸

Current Status and What’s Still Pending

The initial payments have been made and abatement funding is beginning to move through the trust structure. Individual victim payments have not yet begun. The PI Trust continues to process and validate the roughly 63,000 claims that met filing requirements out of more than 614,000 total proofs of claim filed in the case.⁶ Sackler payments of $500 million each are due in May 2027 and May 2028, followed by $400 million in May 2029, with the remaining installments running through the 15-year window.¹

1
Pennsylvania Attorney General. Attorney General Sunday: Purdue Sackler $7.4 Billion National Opioid Settlement Goes Into Effect
2
Willkie Farr & Gallagher. Purdue Pharma Confirms Chapter 11 Plan of Reorganization
3
New York Attorney General. Attorney General James Secures Approval of Purdue Bankruptcy Plan
4
Minnesota Attorney General. Purdue Pharma Opioid Settlement Goes Into Effect
5
ProPublica. Purdue Settlement Leaves Opioid Victims Behind
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Purdue Personal Injury Trust. Purdue PI Trust
7
Massachusetts Attorney General. Frequently Asked Questions About the Purdue Personal Injury Trust
8
OPB. OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma Set to Dissolve After Judge Approves Its Criminal Sentence
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CBS News. Opioid Victims See Little From Settlements as Governments Receive Millions
10
Kroll Restructuring Administration. Purdue Pharma L.P. Restructuring
11
SCOTUSblog. Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P.
12
Harvard Law Review. Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P.
13
Verus LLC. The Purdue Pharma Bankruptcy: Purdue Files New Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Plan
14
National Opioid Settlement. Purdue Confirmation Order
15
Knoa Pharma. Knoa Pharma Begins Operations as a New Public Health Focused Company
16
Maryland Attorney General. Attorney General Brown Announces Purdue Sackler $7.4 Billion Opioid Settlement to Go Into Effect
17
NPR. Purdue Pharma and Sackler Family Members to Pay $7.4B in National Opioid Settlement
18
U.S. Department of Justice. Justice Department Announces Global Resolution of Criminal and Civil Investigations With Opioid Manufacturer Purdue Pharma