A bankruptcy judge on Friday said he would sign off on a deal that forces Purdue Pharma and its billionaire owners to pay out $7.4bn (£5.6bn) over the OxyContin maker's role in the US opioid crisis.
Approval of the plan, which was first presented in January, is expected to bring to an end a torturous legal battle and finally release long-sought funding for people struggling with addiction.
The deal marks an increase of more than $1bn from a previous settlement, which the US Supreme Court rejected last year.
Purdue filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019, looking for a way to resolve thousands of lawsuits it faced accusing the drug-maker of fuelling the opioid epidemic.
According to the lawsuits, Purdue and its owners, the billionaire Sackler family, had aggressively marketed OxyContin, while misleading doctors and patients over addiction and overdose risks of the prescription painkiller.
