The pharmaceutical group Purdue Pharma has agreed to pay $ 270 million in a lawsuit to promote the opioid epidemic in the United States.

The American pharmaceutical Purdue Pharma, accused of promoting the epidemic of opioid addiction with its painkiller OxyContin, reached an agreement on a $ 1 million lawsuit filed by the state of Oklahoma, US media reported Tuesday.

The announced agreement is the first of its kind to deal with the drug crisis in the United StatesWhat? Kill 130 people a day.

Most of the money will go towards the creation of a drug addiction research and treatment center at Oklahoma State University, Purdue said in a press release.

The drug maker also agreed not to promote or market opioids in the state, in what was a "non-negotiable part" of the agreement, says the attorney general of OklahomaMike Hunter.

"The crisis of dependence that our state and our country are facing is a clear and present danger, but we are doing something about it today."Hunter said at a press conference.

"Today's agreement is only the first step in our ultimate goal of ending this nightmarish epidemic", he added.

Hinter is the one who sued Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson and Teva, leading manufacturers of opioid badgesics in the country, for misleading advertising in 2017.

The newspaper The Wall Street Journal reported that Purdue and its owners agreed to pay $ 270 million. Chain CNBC confirmed that an agreement had been reached.

Purdue Pharma, a Connecticut-based company and the origin of the fortune of the famed Sackler family, faces hundreds of lawsuits in the United States, especially states and municipalities, which claim that OxyContin is addictive.

The Oklahoma trial was the first to go to trial, scheduled to begin later this week. The Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed Monday the call of opiate manufacturers to delay the lawsuit. Purdue was the only one of the required manufacturers who, according to reports, reached an agreement.

Hunter said last month that his office had obtained confidential documents which showed that Purdue has launched a "disinformation campaign" to cover the epidemic.

"These documents are overwhelming evidence that Purdue's leaders were more interested in propaganda than in preventing the death toll and solving the problem they had created."Hunter said in a statement.

Purdue said in February that OxyContin was a federally approved drug, developed "Solid set of clinical trials."

"Purdue recognizes that opioid addiction crisis is a major public health challenge"the company said in a statement. "We are proud of the steps we have taken to ensure that opioids are properly prescribed."

Overdose of prescription painkillers and heroin, a drug that opioid addicts use when they do not receive a controlled sale, andhas exploded in the last 20 years, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

According to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), the US Public Health Authority, Nearly 400,000 people died as a result of an overdose of prescription or illegal opioids.

The pop icon Prince and the rocker Tom Petty They are among the victims of the highest profile of the epidemic.

(With information from AFP)