TRENTON -- Two major U.S. manufacturers of opioids are likely to be named in civil suits by New Jersey Attorney General Christopher Porrino as early as this week for deceptive practices in marketing the highly addictive drugs, two sources with direct knowledge of the situation tell NJ Advance Media.

The drug makers at the center of New Jersey's probe are the Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma, which makes OxyContin and the Arizona-based Insys Therapeutics, which makes a version of Fentanyl aimed at cancer patients.

The aim of the New Jersey attorney general's investigation is to cut into the widespread use of opioids in New Jersey. It will seek to refute drug makers' public claims that opioids are safe for managing severe pain when prescribed under a doctor's care and taken according to directions, a source with direct knowledge of New Jersey's inquiry said.

This source, who is not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity, disclosed that "dozens if not hundreds" of New Jersey doctors have so far been subpoenaed about Big Pharma's opioid sales and marketing practices here.

Lawsuits filed in other states allege deceptive marketing practices included rewarding doctors for writing more prescriptions for preferred drugs. Unscrupulous doctors have also been named for deceiving insurers into paying for drugs they prescribed.

Porrino would not confirm or deny whether he planned to sue Purdue, which has offices in Cranbury, or Insys.

But in a written statement sent to NJ Advance Media on Tuesday, he acknowledged "it's no secret that we're taking a hard and close look at the marketing and sales practices of certain pharmaceutical manufacturers when it comes to these highly addictive opioid pain killers."

Calls to an Insys spokesman were not returned. Beverly Sackler, the 93-year-old owner of Purdue Pharma, defended Purdue's track record in a brief interview on Tuesday afternoon.

"I don't know what I can say about the company except that they've been so careful always to keep from harming anybody," Sackler said.

A spokesman for Purdue, Robert Josephson later emailed a longer statement Wednesday:

"We are deeply troubled by the opioid crisis and we are dedicated to being part of the solution. As a company grounded in science, we must balance patient access to FDA-approved medicines, while working collaboratively to solve this public health challenge. Although our products account for approximately 2 percent of the total opioid prescriptions, as a company, we've distributed the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain, developed the first FDA-approved opioid medication with abuse-deterrent properties and partner with law enforcement to ensure access to naloxone. We vigorously deny these allegations and look forward to the opportunity to present our defense."

Purdue Pharma was sued last week by the attorneys general of Louisiana and Washington state and the city of Seattle over alleged deceptive marketing of its prescription opioid OxyContin.

In May 2007, three of Purdue's executives narrowly avoided jail by pleading guilty to federal criminal charges of misleading regulators, physicians and patients about OxyContin's addiction risk.

Purdue was ordered to pay some $600 million in fines and penalties as part of the settlement.

Also last week, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed a civil suit against Insys Therapeutic, alleging it plied doctors with pricey honoraria in exchange for their agreeing to write more prescriptions for its drug Subsys, an orally administered Fentanyl spray 50 times more powerful than heroin.

Arizona's suit also alleges that corrupt doctors committed fraud by writing more than $33 million worth of prescriptions for Subsys from March 2012 to April 2017 and then tricking insurers into paying for it by making them think their patients using the drug had cancer when, in fact, they did not.

Michael Moore, a former attorney general of Mississippi whose law firm is currently advising the Ohio, Mississippi and Washington state attorneys general in their own suits filed against Purdue earlier this summer, told NJ Advance Media that New Jersey joining the legal battle is crucial.

"Getting New Jersey in the case is extremely important," Moore said. "Because it's taken us six months to get 10 states on board. It's a very large state and it's been impacted a lot. And many of the companies reside in New Jersey, so it sends a clear signal that this is a serious effort to hold these companies accountable."

New Jersey's rate of opioid overdose deaths has been exceeding the exploding national average. In 2016, it was 2.5 times the national average, with 1,901 Garden State residents dying from fentanyl-related or heroin overdoses.

Last year, New Jersey overdose deaths likely topped 2,000, according to analysis by NJ Advance Media conducted last month.

Moore said the surge in opioid prescriptions was extremely profitable for Purdue and its owners. Forbes Magazine estimates owners Raymond and Beverly Sackler had assets of $18 billion in 2016, an increase of $4 billion from the previous year. Raymond Sackler died in July at age 97.

"They've made billions of dollars and they need to clean up what they've caused," said Moore. "The drug companies aren't 100 percent responsible, but they're hugely responsible."

Moore has had success in cleaning up such messes. While serving as Mississippi's attorney general in 1997, he landed a $4 billion settlement for his state from the nation's four largest tobacco companies. And in 1998, he helped negotiate a $206 billion, 25-year payout from Big Tobacco to 46 states, including New Jersey.

Today, a similar coalition -- this time, of 41 state attorneys general, not including New Jersey's-- is coming together around opioids.

Last month, those attorneys general -- led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman -- announced they'd begun issuing subpoenas to investigate the drugmakers' marketing practices.

"These cases are going to get resolved all at once," said a source with knowledge of New Jersey's investigation. "They are going to want to get everybody together and come to some grand arrangement."

Moore agrees, adding that "with all 50 states already active on this opioid crisis, we will soon see some type of resolution" to fund drug addiction treatment and prevention efforts.

Such a settlement could reach as much as $60 billion, he said.

Eight in 10 Americans addicted to heroin started with prescription medications, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 75 percent of all opioid misuse begins when people start using medication that wasn't prescribed for them, obtaining it either through friends, family or an illegal drug dealer.

"For cancer pain it works. So nobody's worried about that. But for people who have a shoulder surgery, there's no study that says it's safe to take this stuff long term for chronic pain," said Moore.

"Doctor-prescribed addiction really does occur and it occurs a lot. It's a national emergency that we're losing 150 people a day," he added. "If 150 people died in a plane crash today, and tomorrow the same thing happened, and the same thing the day after that, after three days, we would shut down the air till we figure out what happened."

Meanwhile, New Jersey's Attorney General's Office has also sent subpoenas to Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen, which was first to make and market the synthetic opioid drug Fentanyl. However, a source with direct knowledge of the New Jersey probe said only Purdue and Insys are expected to be among those named in a planned civil action to be filed later this month.

The publicly traded, New Brunswick-based Johnson & Johnson had previously acknowledged the New Jersey attorney general's subpoenas in a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in March.

A spokesman for Janssen on Tuesday declined to comment on the subpoenas.

Claude Brodesser-Akner may be reached at cbrodesser@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ClaudeBrodesser. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.