OXYCONTIN'S MAKER UNDER INVESTIGATION IN SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA

A Purdue Pharma spokesman confirmed the investigation, saying "We are aware
of nothing that should reasonably lead to charges."

Federal authorities in Southwest Virginia are investigating the drug
company Purdue Pharma for its marketing of the painkiller OxyContin, a
company spokesman confirmed Monday.

"Purdue has total confidence in the honesty and integrity of its officers
and directors, and is cooperating in that investigation," said Purdue
Pharma spokesman Tim Bannon. "We are aware of nothing that should
reasonably lead to charges as a result of this investigation."

Bannon said the company fir Advertisement st learned of the investigation
in December 2002.

This is not the first time Purdue Pharma has faced questions from Virginia
prosecutors. In 2001, then-Attorney General Mark Earley requested a meeting
with company officials to discuss reports of growing abuse of the
painkiller, which at the time was described as the drug of choice for
abusers in far Southwest Virginia.

"There have been a number of inquiries, but none of them have been criminal
in nature," Bannon said. "We have responded to all of those inquiries."

Heidi Coy, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Roanoke, declined
to comment Monday, citing the office's policy of neither confirming nor
denying an ongoing investigation.

An attorney in New York City, Paul Hanly, said one of his clients was
subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury in Abingdon in early
2004. He described his client as a legal assistant who worked in the head
office of Purdue Pharma in Stamford, Conn. He declined to identify his client.

Federal prosecutor Randy Ramseyer interviewed Hanly's client about when
company officials became aware of the abuse of OxyContin, Hanly said.
Ramseyer did not ultimately call Hanly's client to testify before the grand
jury, Hanly said. He does not know why. Ramseyer, who is based in Abingdon,
could not be reached for comment Monday.

Hanly said his understanding was that the investigation concerns when
Purdue Pharma officials found out about the widespread abuse of OxyContin.
Purdue Pharma has maintained that company officials only knew about
isolated cases of abuse until the winter of 2000, when they were alerted to
problems by the U.S. Attorney in Maine, Hanly said.

But Hanly said internal documents his client knew about showed that company
officials knew that people were crushing, snorting and injecting OxyContin
dating back to 1997 and 1998. They also knew that the abuse was widespread,
Hanly said. He also represents several hundred clients around the United
States who have sued Purdue Pharma after they became addicted to OxyContin.

Company officials continued to sell billions of dollars worth of OxyContin
even though they knew early on it was being abused, according to Hanly.

The company's marketing practices have long been a concern of critics.

However, a probe by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative
arm of Congress, stopped short of linking Purdue Pharma's promotional
efforts to widespread abuse of OxyContin.

A GAO report released last year noted that some company sales
representatives received large bonuses for targeting selected doctors. The
amount of bonuses the company rewarded to its sales force grew from $1
million in 1996, the year OxyContin hit the market, to $40 million in 2001,
according to the report.

Purdue Pharma changed part of its policy regarding bonuses four years ago
following a meeting with federal authorities in Roanoke, the report stated.

OxyContin abuse first became a key priority among Virginia law enforcement
officials in 2001, when figures from the medical examiner's office in
Roanoke showed a rapidly increasing number of fatal overdoses from oxycodone.

Since then, deaths from methadone and other prescription drugs have
surpassed those caused by oxycodone, the key ingredient in OxyContin. Last
year, 37 people died from oxycodone overdoses in the western half of
Virginia, according to Dr. William Massello, assistant chief medical examiner.

Methadone caused 69 deaths in the region last year, Massello said, and
another 59 were attributed to hydrocodone, a class of painkillers that
includes Vicodin and Lortab. Deaths from oxycodone ranked third in the
region, which saw 201 total drug deaths last year - a decrease of about 20
from the year before.

Although questions about Purdue Pharma's marketing of OxyContin have been
raised by critics of the company, lawsuits filed by people who claimed they
became addicted to the drug while taking it as patients have mostly been
unsuccessful.

Last year, a federal judge in Abingdon dismissed lawsuits filed by three
men who claimed the company over-promoted the painkiller while ignoring its
risks - rendering them addicts while reaping billions in sales.

In dismissing the cases, U.S. District Court Judge James Jones said the
lawsuits were not the proper forum to address several questions, one of
them: "Did Purdue oversell OxyContin, for its own profit?"