The agreement, the largest civil litigation settlement on Staten Island, is
the first made in a private products-liability case by the manufacturer,
Purdue Pharma, which has successfully beaten back more than 400 other claims
involving nearly 1,700 claimants around the country in the past six years.
It effectively shuts down nearly all existing products-liability litigation
against the company.

Stipulations discontinuing the actions were filed yesterday at the Richmond
County Clerk's office.

Neither the plaintiffs' lawyers nor Purdue Pharma revealed settlement
details, but sources put the total package at $75 million.

At least 20 Staten Islanders were among those awarded settlements, based on
the Advance's calculations.

The agreements affect all 1,117 actions brought here, including 924
plaintiffs who live outside New York, plus several hundred other lawsuits
brought in various courts around the country.

Prior to the agreement, there had been 1,374 active cases against Purdue
Pharma, a company spokesman said.

NO ADMISSION OF GUILT

In a statement, Purdue Pharma said the settlement terms for the cases filed
on Staten Island "make it economically sensible to resolve these claims now
rather than to continue to pay the expenses and bear the burden of defending
them."

The company said it would devote the time and money it would have spent
defending the lawsuits toward "making and selling innovative medications for
the treatment of disease and pain."

OxyContin maker settles suit for $75M
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There was no admission of guilt on Purdue Pharma's part, said Timothy F.
Bannon, the company spokesman. Bannon would not comment on any possible
impact the settlement could have on OxyContin sales, which were $948 million
in 2005, the most recent year for which figures are available.

Last week, state Supreme Court Justice Joseph J. Maltese, assigned to
coordinate the pretrial discovery process in all the New York state cases,
denied the company's bid to dismiss the claims filed by the 924 out-of-state
residents. It was not immediately clear how much, if any, role that decision
played in the agreement.

Lawyer John D'Amato, of the West Brighton firm of Russo, Scamardella &
D'Amato, represented the plaintiffs, along with attorneys from the law firms
of Hanly Conroy, Bierstein & Sheridan in Manhattan and Simmons Cooper, LLC,
in East Alton, Ill.

While acknowledging the agreement, D'Amato said he was prevented from
discussing its terms and conditions. But he said the case marks the first
mass-tort settlement in the history of Staten Island civil litigation.

"This is breakthrough litigation for the Staten Island legal system," he
said.

His co-counsel, Paul J. Hanly Jr., Jayne Conroy and Jeffrey S. Cooper, did
not return telephone calls yesterday seeking comment.

SYNTHETIC PAINKILLER

OxyContin, a synthetic morphine-like painkiller, was introduced in 1996 for
patients with moderate to severe pain of long duration, such as cancer,
severe forms of arthritis and "chronic pain syndromes." Its medicine is
slowly released over 12 hours, although some allege its effects wear off
sooner.

It quickly became the No.1-prescribed narcotic of its kind -- generating, at
its peak, $1.6 billion in sales in 2003.

The drug has been a boon to countless patients who say it was the only
medicine that effectively relieves their pain.

However others, including dozens of Staten Islanders, allege Purdue Pharma
over-aggressively marketed OxyContin. Despite being prescribed the drug by
their doctors, they claim they became addicted and allegedly suffered
debilitating side effects, including withdrawal, paranoia, delusions,
anxiety and obsessive-compulsive behavior.

"There is quickly becoming a national health crisis caused by the overly
aggressive and misleading marketing practices of these companies," D'Amato
argued in September 2003, when five Staten Island clients sued OxyContin.
One plaintiff, former Great Kills resident Reinee Pitt, told the Advance at
the time that she suffered temper tantrums, wrenching of the spine, insomnia
and hallucinations after being prescribed OxyContin following a bone
transplant and hip replacement.

"It's like having the devil jump in you," she said then. "I think it's
terrible that there's a pill that makes you want to die."

Ms. Pitt, 39, who has since moved to Florida, declined to discuss the
settlement when reached yesterday by telephone.

But she said the litigation, for her, wasn't so much about money as raising
public awareness about the drug and pushing for tighter federal regulation
of it.

LEGAL ASSAULT

In July 2001, the federal Food and Drug Administration, which approved
OxyContin, required Purdue Pharma to strengthen the warnings and precautions
on the drug's labeling. Labels now include a "black box" warning, which
notes the potentially lethal consequences of crushing the tablets and
snorting or injecting the powder.

In addition, the indication for use was clarified to reflect OxyContin's
approval for the treatment of moderate to severe pain in patients who
require around-the-clock narcotics for an extended time.

The legal assault against Purdue Pharma on the Island began in September
2003, when five residents filed suit.

Maltese ultimately denied the plaintiffs' bid for class-action status,
saying their cases had "important individual issues" and needed to be
evaluated separately. He suggested, instead, the cases be considered for
mass-tort status, meaning they all would be argued at once, and the
plaintiffs' damages individually assessed if they won.

In August 2005, Maltese was appointed to coordinate the discovery process in
all lawsuits brought in New York state against Purdue Pharma. Discovery is
the pretrial process in which both sides disclose evidence and information.

Days earlier, 1,000 litigants -- 15 from Staten Island, the other 985
hailing from all 50 states, along with Guam, Canada and England -- sued
Purdue Pharma in state Supreme Court, St. George.

OUT-OF-STATE CLAIMS

The out-of-state plaintiffs brought their suits here, contending that Purdue
Pharma and some of its related companies were incorporated in New York state
or have their partnership interests held by a New York corporation.

Purdue Pharma moved to dismiss the out-of-state claims, maintaining they
should have been filed in those plaintiffs' home states. Bringing doctors,
documents and other records to New York would prove cumbersome, the company
contended.

Maltese swept aside those arguments.

Purdue Pharma's only other settlement came in 2004, when it reached a $10
million agreement with West Virginia, whose attorney general alleged the
company had over-aggressively marketed OxyContin, and sought to recoup
health-care expenses paid by the state.

Purdue Pharma admitted no wrongdoing in that settlement.

Frank Donnelly is a news reporter for the Advance. He may be reached at
fdonnelly@siadvance.com.