Cost of defending your product: $250 million

Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma has been highly successful at fending off mass tort lawyers’ assault on its revolutionary but often-abused painkiller, Oxycontin. So the system works? Well, aside from the fact that its defense costs have reached $250 million. And now the company is entangled in insurance coverage litigation. (Lisa Siegel, “No Escaping OxyContin Fee Frenzy”, […]

Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma has been highly successful at fending off mass tort lawyers’ assault on its revolutionary but often-abused painkiller, Oxycontin. So the system works? Well, aside from the fact that its defense costs have reached $250 million. And now the company is entangled in insurance coverage litigation. (Lisa Siegel, “No Escaping OxyContin Fee Frenzy”, Connecticut Law Tribune, Sept. 27). For more on Oxycontin, see Oct. 21 and Oct. 19, 2003 and links from there.

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  • Winning and Losing Lawsuits

    Walter Olson at Overlawyered writes that Purdue Pharma has spent more than $250 million successfully defending itself against lawsuits related to its product, Oxycontin. Every legal attack so far over the “often-abused painkiller” has failed, but look …