A $7.4 billion settlement reached with the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family — its owners — is now legally effective a decade after attorneys general from multiple states launched an investigation and seven years after Colorado filed a lawsuit against them.

The company produced OxyContin.

“This settlement ends their involvement with Purdue Pharma and delivers funds for addiction treatment, prevention, and recovery to communities across the country over the next 15 years,” said Attorney General Phil Weiser. “This action provides accountability for Purdue’s wrongdoing.”

Attorneys general from across the country signed on to the settlement, which stemmed from allegations that Purdue Pharma produced and aggressively marketed opioids in the United States, fueling the largest drug crisis in the country’s history.

As part of the settlement, Purdue’s manufacturing operations have been transferred to Knoa Pharma LLC, which has no connection to Purdue. The settlement prohibits Knoa from marketing opioids and requires Purdue and the Sacklers to make public more than 30 million internal documents.

Colorado is expected to receive $75.6 million from the settlement over the next 15 years. In total, the state has secured nearly $1 billion in opioid settlement funds.

Purdue Pharma is set to be dissolved and replaced by a company focused on the public good by the week’s end, as a massive legal settlement resolving thousands of lawsuits takes effect.

A federal judge on Tuesday delivered a criminal sentence to the company to resolve a U.S. Department of Justice probe — a last necessary step to clear the way for the settlement.

U.S. District Judge Madeline Cox Arleo made her decision after listening to hours of impact statements from people who lost loved ones or struggled with addiction themselves and requested she reject the negotiated sentence. While she didn’t go that far, she said she sympathized with people who bore the brunt of an epidemic linked to more than 900,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999.

Purdue reached a deal with the Justice Department in 2020 to resolve criminal and civil probes the company was facing.

The Stamford, Conn.-based company admitted it did not have an effective program to keep its powerful prescription painkillers from being diverted to the black market, even though it told the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that it did.

It also admitted it paid doctors through a speakers program to prescribe the drugs and paid an electronic medical records company to send doctors information on patients that encouraged more opioid prescriptions.

Steve Miller, who became chairman of Purdue’s board to guide the company through the bankruptcy process and will cease to have that position when the company is dissolved, addressed the hearing: “I deeply apologize on behalf of the company for everything they did,” he said.

Only the company was charged — not individual employees or owners.