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Ohio Court Certifies Class in OxyContin Litigation

By Lindsay F. Wiley [Bio]

August 18, 2003 - A state court in Ohio has affirmed that a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma and Abbot Laboratories can move forward as a class action. The plaintiffs claim they were injured by OxyContin and that the defendants irresponsibly marketed the drug for wide use. The class excludes those who obtained the drug illegally.

The defendant companies have denied the platinffs' allegations and plan to argue on appeal that the plaintiffs' claims must be considered individually because the plaintiffs'; situations vary. Purdue Pharma representatives report that a total of thirty-six OxyContin cases have been dismissed, the company has not paid any settlements in the dismissed cases, and no cases have resulted in judgments against the company. About 285 OxyContin lawsuits are still pending.

OxyContin was received as a breakthrough for sufferers of severe chronic pain when it was first released in 1996. Abuse of the drug became a widespread problem after users discovered that crushing the tablets and snorting or injecting the contents allowed them to circumvent the drug's time-release mechanism, yielding a heroin-like high.