Opioid Settlement Money to Fund Addiction Research Center

Oklahoma dropped its lawsuit against OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma in exchange for a National Center for Addiction Studies and Treatment in Tulsa.

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Oklahoma State University plans to launch a National Center for Addiction Studies and Treatment using funds from a lawsuit settlement with OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma, Science reported yesterday (April 2).

According to the settlement, Purdue Pharma and the family that owns the company is slated to provide a $177 million endowment for the national center and $20 million over five years for anti–opioid-addiction drugs such as naloxone. The money will build out the university’s Center for Wellness and Recovery, which opened in 2017 and was designed to train doctors on treating addiction, study its causes, help those suffering from opioid use disorder, and educate the public about the opioid epidemic.

“Our mission is to train primary care physicians to work in rural and underserved areas,” Kayse Shrum, OSU medical school president, tells Science. “And that’s where the [addiction] crisis is most acute. So we began ...

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Meet the Author

  • Ashley Yeager

    Ashley started at The Scientist in 2018. Before joining the staff, she worked as a freelance editor and writer, a writer at the Simons Foundation, and a web producer at Science News, among other positions. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a master’s degree in science writing from MIT. Ashley edits the Scientist to Watch and Profile sections of the magazine and writes news, features, and other stories for both online and print.

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