Insys Sales Manager Gave Doctor Lap Dance, Witness Testifies As More Details Of Opioid-Maker’s Strategies Emerge In Trial

The Associated Press: Witness: Exec Gave Lap Dance To Doctor In Drug Bribes Scheme
A former pharmaceutical executive accused of joining in a scheme to bribe doctors into prescribing a powerful painkiller once gave a lap dance to a doctor the company was pressuring to get his patients on the drug, her onetime colleague said Tuesday. Jurors heard the testimony on the second day of the closely watched federal trial in Boston against Insys Therapeutics founder John Kapoor and four other former executives. They include Sunrise Lee, whom prosecutors have described as a former exotic dancer who was hired to be a regional sales manager even though she had no experience in the pharmaceutical world. (Richer, 1/29)

Bloomberg: Insys ‘Closer’ Lap-Danced To Boost Opioid Sales, Jury Told 
Holly Brown, a former Insys sales representative in Chicago, said in 2012 she, her boss Sunrise Lee, and another Insys sales rep took Dr. Paul Madison to The Underground -- a high-end nightclub near the Chicago River. She then spotted Lee, a former stripper, and the physician in an intimate moment, Brown told the jury. “She was sitting on his lap, kind of bouncing around, and he had his hands all over her chest,’’ Brown said. Lee was hired to be a “closer’’ with doctors targeted in the Subsys marketing program, according to a government witness who prosecutors are expected to call in the case. (Feeley and Lawrence, 1/29)

Stateline: Opioid Money Has Helped, But States Want More
More than a decade into an opioid overdose epidemic that’s costing the nation at least $78 billion a year, emergency federal dollars have kindled local victories. But state and local officials say they need sustainable funding for what they expect to be a long-term struggle to provide effective treatment for legions of people addicted to opioids. Many officials are counting on settlements in civil cases against the drugmakers and distributors that state and local governments blame for the epidemic. Other states are considering an annual assessment against drug companies or a tax on painkillers. (Vestal, 1/30)

And in more news on the crisis —

The Associated Press: More Staff On Leave As Hospital Reviews Deaths, Drug Doses
An Ohio hospital said Tuesday it has put more employees, including managers, on leave amid allegations that an intensive-care doctor ordered potentially fatal doses of pain medication for dozens of patients. Mount Carmel Health System, which fired the doctor in December, said 23 staff members are on leave pending further investigation. It previously had said 20 employees — six pharmacists and 14 nurses — were on leave. (1/29)

Columbus Dispatch: Son Of Mount Carmel Patient Who Received High Painkiller Dose Wants Systemic, Legislative Changes
A son of a 65-year-old woman who received a potentially fatal dose of painkiller at Mount Carmel West hospital in early 2015 expressed grief and distress Tuesday that such an error was not immediately caught, but allowed to continue for almost four years. Chris Thomas said he felt his mom, Jan Thomas, was used as a guinea pig or crash-test dummy when she died on March 1, 2015. She was one of 34 intensive-care patients whom Mount Carmel has said were given excessive doses of painkiller, the vast majority of them potentially fatal, all ordered by the same doctor. (Viviano, 1/29)

Boston Globe: Boston Sees Outbreak Of HIV Among Boston Drug Users
Public health officials are scrambling to contain a new cluster of HIV cases among people who inject drugs, this time based in Boston and involving six people so far. The new cluster follows an HIV outbreak in Lawrence and Lowell that involved 153 cases from 2015 through 2018. (Freyer, 1/29)