Minnesota to receive $59M more in opioid settlement dollars as national Purdue/Sackler settlement goes into effect
Attorney General Ellison’s office has recovered $633 million for Minnesota from 21 settlements with opioid companies; all dollars dedicated to opioid treatment, remediation, and prevention in Minnesota
Purdue and Sacklers will release more than 30 million internal documents as AG Ellison continues push for transparency
May 1, 2026 (SAINT PAUL) — Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced that a $7.4 billion settlement reached with Purdue Pharma and its owners, the Sackler family, has become legally effective today, with $59 million going to Minnesota. This caps nearly a decade of work by the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office and attorneys general from across the country in pursuing investigations and litigation over Purdue’s and the Sacklers’ role in fueling the opioid crisis, particularly though its blockbuster opioid Oxycontin.
Including the settlement with Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers, Attorney General Ellison’s office has now reached 21 settlements with opioid companies that are worth a total $633 million to Minnesota. Because of a 2022 law for which Attorney General Ellison advocated strongly, all funds the Attorney General’s Office wins in opioid settlements are dedicated to treatment, remediation, and prevention. By the terms of a 2021 agreement that Attorney General Ellison spearheaded, 75 percent of all opioid-settlement dollars go directly to cities and counties and 25 percent goes to the State.
In all opioid settlements Minnesota has reached, Attorney General Ellison has pushed aggressively for document disclosure and transparency. Today’s settlement also provides that Purdue and the Sacklers will make public more than 30 million documents related to their opioid business, which along with other opioid-company documents that have been disclosed in the states’ settlements will be housed in a public archive at the University of California–San Francisco. The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office will sit on the Disclosure Oversight Board at UCSF.
“No amount of money can ever make up for the death, devastation, and destruction opioid companies caused in every corner of Minnesota. Nevertheless, it’s been critically important to hold them accountable — and no company more so than Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family members that controlled it,” Attorney General Ellison said. “Although Purdue was a relatively small pharmaceutical company, their blockbuster drug Oxycontin alone held more than a one-quarter share of the opioid market for a decade — and the Sacklers’ personal profits of it were obscene. Purdue and the Sacklers knew at all times how dangerous their product was, but kept fraudulently and deceptively marketing it to sell more and more opioids, addict more and more people, and make more and more money. They knew what they were doing, and they did it anyway.
“In addition to the dollars for opioid recovery in Minnesota and the end of Purdue’s and the Sacklers’ ability to make and market opioids, today’s settlement also provides that they will hand over more than 30 million internal documents that will show in excruciating detail exactly what they did to us and how they did it. This kind of transparency is critical so that they and no other company can ever do it again,” Attorney General Ellison added.
In 2016, the attorneys general launched a multistate investigation of Purdue Pharma. In 2018, the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office directly sued Purdue in Minnesota state court for consumer fraud, including that Purdue deliberately minimized the addiction risk of long-term opioid use and failed to sufficiently disclose the risks of long-term opioid use; deceptive and unlawful trade practices, including that Purdue made misrepresentations designed to mislead health care providers about the benefits of opioids; along with public nuisance, unjust enrichment and other charges.
In 2019, Attorney General Ellison amended the lawsuit to include eight members of the Sackler family, which controlled Purdue at all times, as individual defendants. The amended complaint showed that the Sackler family deliberately downplayed the known risks of their blockbuster drug Oxycontin, while calling the people addicted to it “criminals” and “scum of the earth.” The lawsuit showed the Sacklers then moved to exploit addiction treatment as an “attractive market” that was “naturally linked” to the crisis they created.
The Sackers are reported to have personally taken as much $10 billion in profits from Oxycontin.
After Purdue filed bankruptcy in September 2019 in light of massive litigation against it, the attorneys general took a lead role in the bankruptcy proceedings, including negotiating a new settlement that obtained more money from the Sacklers after the Supreme Court invalidated provisions in a prior settlement, in June 2024. The settlement taking effect today gives funds to communities across the country, as well as individual victims and other groups who filed claims in the bankruptcy proceedings.
In 2025, Attorney General Ellison, as part of a coalition of 55 attorneys general representing all eligible U.S. states and territories, signed onto the settlement. It resolves litigation against Purdue and the Sacklers for producing and aggressively marketing opioids in the United States, fueling the largest drug crisis in the country’s history.
The settlement permanently bars the Sacklers from selling opioids in the U.S. and delivers funds for addiction treatment, prevention, and recovery to communities across the country over the next 15 years.
Most settlement funds will be distributed in the first three years. The Sacklers are paying more than $1.5 billion today, followed by approximately an additional $500 million in May 2027, $500 million in May 2028, and $400 million in May 2029. Additionally, Purdue is paying approximately $900 million today.
The settlement also means that Purdue’s manufacturing operations transfer effective today to Knoa Pharma LLC, which will be overseen by a board of directors who had no connection to Purdue. The settlement prevents Knoa from marketing opioids and provides for an independent monitor to ensure it provides these medicines in the safest possible manner that limits the risk of diversion.
Attorney General Ellison is joined in reaching the settlement by attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, U.S. Virgin Islands, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
