OXYCONTIN NOT CLASS-ACTION SUIT

Attorneys For Five Southwest Virginians Pledged To Expand The Lawsuit To
Benefit Hundreds Of Other People After The Lawsuit Was Filed Last Summer.

After promising last year to make a class-action lawsuit out of allegations
that OxyContin is the source of widespread addiction and anguish, lawyers
for five Southwest Virginians have reversed their legal tack.

Plaintiffs' attorneys told a federal judge in Abingdon they no longer want
to have a $5.2 billion lawsuit against the painkiller's manufacturer, Purdue
Pharma of Connecticut, certified as a class-action lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge James Jones allowed the plaintiffs to withdraw their
request to expand the lawsuit Wednesday, but only after receiving assurances
that potential clients who may have relied on the case will be notified of
the development.

The class-action withdrawal was the latest victory for Purdue Pharma, which
has maintained all along that OxyContin provides effective relief for
chronic pain - and is harmful only when lawbreakers abuse it by snorting or
injecting the ground-up pills.

"The plaintiffs apparently, after much fanfare, have come around to our
point of view," company spokesman Tim Bannon said.

In the weeks after the lawsuit was filed last summer, attorney Emmitt Yeary
of Abingdon and other attorneys who represented five people who said they
were harmed by OxyContin pledged to expand the lawsuit to benefit hundreds
of other people.

Yeary said Thursday that the individual plaintiffs named in the lawsuit want
to go forward with the case, and that broadening it to a class-action
lawsuit would slow the process down. There have also been problems getting
in touch with at least one of the plaintiffs, he said.

The lawsuit brought by the five initial plaintiffs will now proceed to a
trial scheduled for March 2003. Yeary declined to comment on what will
happen with prospective clients who were interested in joining a
class-action case.

William Eskridge, an Abingdon attorney who represents Purdue Pharma, said
the case was never appropriate for class-action certification because the
allegations of each plaintiff lacked a common thread.

Of the five people named in the initial suit, some said they became addicted
to OxyContin after taking it as prescribed by a doctor, while others
admitted they abused the potent narcotic.

Now that the class-action issue is behind them, Eskridge said, company
lawyers will concentrate on a defense that will be based, among other
things, on the principle that someone who breaks the law cannot benefit from
a lawsuit over the resulting harm.

The company has no intention of making a settlement offer, he said.

Of about 50 lawsuits across the country that have been filed against Purdue
Pharma involving OxyContin, none has been certified to a class-action case,
Bannon said. Several of the cases have been dismissed in recent months.