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Secret documents about the marketing of the potent pain pill OxyContin will be unsealed next month under an order issued Wednesday by a Kentucky judge. STAT filed a motion in March to unseal the records in Pike Circuit Court in Kentucky. They include the deposition of Dr. Richard Sackler, a former president of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and a member of the family that owns the privately held Connecticut company. OxyContin has been blamed by many for helping to ignite the scourge of opioid abuse in the United States that began with prescription painkillers and has progressed to heroin and fentanyl. (Armstrong, 5/11)

A judge has unsealed records from a Kentucky lawsuit against the maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, including the secret testimony of a former company president. Pike Circuit Court Judge Steven Combs ordered the records be released in 32 days. But Combs said he would delay his order if Purdue Pharma appealed the decision. Richard Silbert, the company’s chief litigation counsel, confirmed it would appeal. He declined further comment. (Beam, 5/11)

Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, lost a legal battle Wednesday to keep records and testimony about its bestselling and widely abused painkiller secret. A judge in Pike County, Kentucky, a region hard-hit by prescription painkiller abuse, granted a motion by a news outlet to unseal records from a lawsuit by the state accusing the company of fraud, conspiracy and negligence in the development and marketing of the drug. Purdue settled that suit in December for $24 million without any admission of wrongdoing. (Kim and Ryan, 5/11)