Companies to pay $39.5m in OxyContin and Risperdal cases

Purdue Pharma and Johnson & Johnson will pay a total of $39.5m (£27m; €36m) to the state of Kentucky to settle lawsuits alleging that the companies had engaged in false marketing practices and hid side effects of their drugs from clinicians and consumers.

In a settlement reached on 22 December, Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, a time released formulation of oxycodone, agreed to pay $24m to settle a lawsuit by the state that alleged that the Connecticut based company had concealed the highly addictive nature of the opioid and encouraged doctors who were not trained in pain management to prescribe its formulation.

Kentucky officials had charged that soon after OxyContin was approved by the US Food …