With the opioid epidemic raging, you may at this point be familiar with Purdue Pharma. It makes the powerful painkiller OxyContin and has been widely blamed for igniting the current crisis.
After debuting OxyContin in 1996, Purdue raked in billions using aggressive and deceptive sales tactics, including ratcheting up dosages of the addictive opioid while
lying about its addictiveness. As OxyContin prescriptions soared, opioid overdose deaths increased six-fold in the US, killing more than 400,000 people between 1999 and 2017. Of those deaths, around 200,000 involved prescription opioids specifically.
In 2007, Purdue and three of its executives pleaded guilty in federal court to
misleading doctors, regulators, and patients about the addictiveness of OxyContin. The company has seen a flurry of lawsuits making similar allegations since then.
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Documents released this week (PDF) allege—and include new, rather damning evidence—that members of the Sackler family not only knew about the illegal and loathsome activities at Purdue, but they personally directed them. Members of the Sackler family, particularly Richard Sackler, aggressively pushed for extreme sales figures—and profits—which they accomplished in part by bullying their sales representatives; targeting vulnerable patients, such as the elderly and veterans;
suggesting that the addictive opioid was an alternative to safe medications like Tylenol; and encouraging doctors to write longer and higher dose prescriptions, according to the lawsuit. All the while, the family allegedly dismissed evidence of OxyContin’s addictiveness and blamed patients for their addictions—referring to them as “reckless criminals.”
Brewing storm
When Purdue first planned to sell OxyContin (oxycodone), the Sacklers pitched the idea of downplaying its abuse potential and selling it as an uncontrolled drug in other countries, according to documents referenced in the lawsuit.
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In 1999, Richard became CEO of Purdue, and the company hired hundreds of sales representatives.
They were trained to tell doctors that the risk of OxyContin addiction was “less than one percent,” the lawsuit alleges. In the subsequent years, it became clear that the statistic was a lie. In 2001, when a federal prosecutor reported 59 OxyContin overdose deaths in one state, Richard wrote in an email to Purdue executives: “This is not too bad. It could have been far worse.”
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With the realities of addiction and overdose becoming apparent,
Richard suggested blaming the patients rather than the company’s drug. “[W]e have to hammer on the abusers in every way possible,” he wrote in a confidential email. “They are the culprits and the problem. They are reckless criminals.”
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...It agreed to enter into a Corporate Integrity Agreement with the US government, for instance. But according to the lawsuit, the Sacklers were secretly still just as involved as ever, and the company violated its integrity agreement with continued deception.
The more-than-300-page legal filing goes on to document repeated instances in which members of the Sackler family pestered Purdue staff and set ever-increasing targets for sales and profits. Richard in particular would demand frequent sales reports and figures, often on holidays and weekends.
From 2007 to 2016, Purdue increased its sales force from around 300 reps to 700 reps, apparently to meet the demands of the Sacklers, according to the suit. The family pushed for reps to sell more and more opioids, at higher dosages, despite the fact that these were more dangerous. They also required sales representatives to meet an average of 7.5 prescribers a day and get those prescribers to commit to prescribing more and more opioids.
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The statement noted that the FDA had determined that Purdue’s opioids were safe and effective for their intended use and that the company had fulfilled the requirements of its Corporate Integrity Agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services.
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More:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019...pushing-pills/
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