Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Among Dirty Laundry Being Aired In Opioid Court Cases Is Purdue's Push Into Lucrative Addiction Treatment Field
The New York Times: Lawsuits Lay Bare Sackler Family’s Role In Opioid Crisis
The Sacklers had a new plan. It was 2014, and the company the family had controlled for two generations, Purdue Pharma, had been hit with years of investigations and lawsuits over its marketing of the highly addictive opioid painkiller OxyContin, at one point pleading guilty to a federal felony and paying more than $600 million in criminal and civil penalties. But as the country’s addiction crisis worsened, the Sacklers spied another business opportunity. They could increase their profits by selling treatments for the very problem their company had helped to create: addiction to opioids. (Hakim, Rabin and Rashbaum, 4/1)
Stat: Purdue’s New Subsidiaries Raise Questions In Potential Bankruptcy
As Purdue Pharma grapples with thousands of lawsuits blaming the company for contributing to the opioid crisis, the drug maker has signaled it may file bankruptcy. If that happens, some newly created subsidiaries are likely to come under scrutiny. Over the past several months, Purdue has launched two limited partnerships that are now marketing or developing drugs that were previously listed as part of the Purdue product portfolio. Several former Purdue executives run these companies, both of which the drug maker refers to as operating subsidiaries. And a Purdue entity holds trademark rights for their names. (Silverman, 4/1)
USA Today: Addiction Seeps Into The Office As Workers Abuse Opioids, Pot, Alcohol
After Chris Tullock got promoted from washing dishes to busing tables at a restaurant in Northampton, Massachusetts, she got a second offer that was hard to turn down: smoking weed. It wasn't something she'd done often, she says. “I walked in a circle with a pie plate for, like, 15 minutes on a busy night,” says Tullock, 47, a 30-year veteran of the restaurant industry. “One of the waitresses said, ‘Please don’t ever smoke pot at work again.’" (Jones and O'Donnell, 3/29)
Bloomberg: Teva Wins Patent Case Related To Orexo Opioid-Treatment Drug
A U.S. jury on Friday rejected a claim by Sweden’s Orexo AB that two generic opioid-addiction treatments created by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. infringed a patent for Orexo’s biggest drug, Zubsolv. A Teva unit had created copies of the drugs Suboxone and Subutex, which are made by a third company, Indivior Plc, which wasn’t party to the lawsuit. Orexo had argued that the Teva products used the same essential formula as that covered by the patent for Zubsolv. After a trial in Wilmington, Delaware, federal court jurors disagreed. (Yasiejko, 3/29)
The Washington Post: An Overdose And A Mother’s Search For Truth
She had spent the past 13 months retelling the story of her daughter to anyone who would listen, and now Susan Stevens, 53, sped down the highway, needing to tell it again. Thirty people were gathered at a Cracker Barrel restaurant to hear a local sheriff discuss the opioid epidemic. Maybe, Susan thought, she could talk to the sheriff about her daughter, Toria. Maybe this would be the time when the pieces fit together and the ending finally made sense. The car had belonged to Toria, and as Susan pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot, she could hear Toria’s lip gloss rattling around under the front seat. Her anti-overdose medication was still in the glove box, unused. (Saslow, 3/31)
The Associated Press: DC To Distribute 76K Anti-Overdose Drug Kits By Fall 2019
Officials of Washington, D.C., say the city plans to distribute 76,000 kits to help counter area opioid overdoses by the end of September. The Washington Post reports the distribution would drastically increase the availability of the anti-overdose drug naloxone, as the city distributed only about 2,400 kits during the last nine months of 2017. (4/1)
The Associated Press: China To Regulate All Fentanyl Drugs As Controlled Substance
China said Monday it would begin regulating all fentanyl-related drugs as a class of controlled substances, in a change U.S. officials had long advocated as a way to stem the flow of lethal opioids from China. The sweeping change in the way China regulates drugs that mimic fentanyl takes effect May 1 and could help end the game of regulatory whack-a-mole with chemists who can manufacture novel opioids faster than they can be banned. (McNeil and Kinetz, 4/1)
