Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Opioid Crisis In Court: Sackler Family Made Billions Off OxyContin; Sales Rep Says Insys Used Speaker Gigs As Bribes; Nationwide Lawsuit Heats Up In Ohio
ProPublica and Stat: OxyContin Maker Explored Expansion Into “Attractive” Anti-Addiction Market
Not content with billions of dollars in profits from the potent painkiller OxyContin, its maker explored expanding into an “attractive market” fueled by the drug’s popularity — treatment of opioid addiction, according to previously secret passages in a court document filed by the state of Massachusetts. In internal correspondence beginning in 2014, Purdue Pharma executives discussed how the sale of opioids and the treatment of opioid addiction are “naturally linked” and that the company should expand across “the pain and addiction spectrum,” according to redacted sections of the lawsuit by the Massachusetts attorney general. (Armstrong, 1/30)
The Wall Street Journal: Family Behind OxyContin Maker Made Billions, Say Court Papers
The controlling family behind the maker of opioid painkiller OxyContin took home billions of dollars over the past decade, even as sales of the drug waned, newly revealed parts of court documents show. More than $4 billion was paid out between 2008 and 2016 to members of the Sackler family, owners of drugmaker Purdue Pharma LP, according to redacted portions of a civil complaint brought by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey against Purdue for allegedly contributing to the state’s opioid crisis. (Hopkins and Randazzo, 1/30)
CNN: Opioid Maker Purdue Pharma Fights To Prevent Documents Involving Sackler Family From Going Public
Purdue Pharma filed a motion Wednesday to stay a Massachusetts judge's order that could expose details about one of America's richest families and their connection to the nation's opioid crisis. The Sacklers and some employees of their company, Purdue Pharma, have been named in a lawsuit that accuses them of profiting from the opioid epidemic by aggressively marketing the painkiller OxyContin, claims denied by attorneys for the family and Purdue. (1/30)
Boston Globe: Ex-Insys Sales Rep Details Bribery Of Doctors To Sell Fentanyl Spray
As a sales representative for Arizona-based Insys Therapeutics, Szymanski was setting up paid speaker programs for a doctor who had written dozens of prescriptions for Subsys, a fentanyl spray that cost about $19,000 for a month’s dose. Often, no one showed up for the programs, but the company would still pay the doctor as a reward, Szymanski said in US District Court in Boston on Wednesday. (Cramer, 1/30)
The New York Times: Opioid Lawsuits Are Headed To Trial. Here's Why The Stakes Are Getting Uglier.
Just over a year ago, opioid lawsuits against makers and distributors of the painkillers were proliferating so rapidly that a judicial panel bundled all the federal cases under the stewardship of a single judge. On a January morning, Judge Dan Aaron Polster of the Northern District of Ohio made his opening remarks to lawyers for nearly 200 municipal governments gathered in his Cleveland courtroom. He wanted the national opioid crisis resolved with a meaningful settlement within a year, proclaiming, “We don’t need briefs and we don’t need trials.” That year is up. (Hoffman, 1/30)
And in other news on the crisis —
Stat: Drug Makers Looking To Replace Opioids Try To Keep Some Pain In The Picture
Tim LaBranche and his colleagues at the drug maker Pfizer had operated on a group of lab rodents to replicate the effects of osteoarthritic joint damage. They had also given some of them a new pain drug, called an NGF inhibitor, while others got a placebo. The researchers wanted to know if the drug would not only blunt the rats’ chronic pain, but also some useful pain, the kind that reminds humans to steer clear of a hot stove — or to stop walking on a damaged knee. The idea was to see whether the inky footprints of rats that had been treated were thicker than those of the control group, evidence that they were overburdening an injured leg. (Garde, 1/31)
