Purdue Pharma L.P., the maker of OxyContin, and three of its executives were ordered to pay a $634.5 million fine on Friday for misleading the public about the painkiller’s risk of addiction.
U.S. District Judge James Jones levied the fine on Purdue, its top lawyer and former president and former chief medical officer after a hearing that lasted about 4 1/2 hours. The hearing included statements by numerous people who said their lives were changed forever by the addiction potential of OxyContin, a trade name for a long-acting form of the painkiller oxycodone.
