Prestigious Consulting Firm Advised Purdue Pharma On How To 'Turbocharge' OxyContin Sales And Avoid DEA's Efforts

In 2009, McKinsey & Company wrote a report for Purdue Pharma saying that new sales tactics would increase sales of OxyContin by $200 million to $400 million annually and “suggested sales ‘drivers’ based on the ideas that opioids reduce stress and make patients more optimistic and less isolated,” according to the lawsuit. McKinsey also recommended that Purdue redirect its sales force to focus on doctors who were especially prolific prescribers of OxyContin. The firm was also part of the team that looked at how “to counter the emotional messages from mothers with teenagers that overdosed," the lawsuit claims.

The New York Times: McKinsey Advised Purdue Pharma How To ‘Turbocharge’ Opioid Sales, Lawsuit Says

The world’s most prestigious management-consulting firm, McKinsey & Company, has been drawn into a national reckoning over who bears responsibility for the opioid crisis that has devastated families and communities across America. In legal papers released in unredacted form on Thursday, the Massachusetts attorney general said McKinsey had helped the maker of OxyContin fan the flames of the opioid epidemic. (Forsythe and Bogdanich, 2/1)

Kaiser Health News: Lawsuit Details How The Sackler Family Allegedly Built An OxyContin Fortune

The first nine months of 2013 started off as a banner year for the Sackler family, owners of the pharmaceutical company that produces OxyContin, the addictive opioid pain medication. Purdue Pharma paid the family $400 million from its profits during that time, claims a lawsuit filed by the Massachusetts attorney general. However, when profits dropped in the fourth quarter, the family allegedly supported the company’s intense push to increase sales representatives’ visits to doctors and other prescribers. (Willmsen and Bebinger, 2/1)

In other news on the epidemic —

Politico: How Your Health Information Is Sold And Turned Into ‘Risk Scores’

Companies are starting to sell “risk scores” to doctors, insurers and hospitals to identify patients at risk of opioid addiction or overdose, without patient consent and with little regulation of the kinds of personal information used to create the scores. While the data collection is aimed at helping doctors make more informed decisions on prescribing opioids, it could also lead to blacklisting of some patients and keep them from getting the drugs they need, according to patient advocates. (Ravindranath, 2/3)

Los Angeles Times: Even In Best-Case Scenario, Opioid Overdose Deaths Will Keep Rising Until 2022

In the nation’s opioid epidemic, the carnage is far from over. A new projection of opioid overdose death rates suggests that even if there is steady progress in reducing prescription narcotic abuse across the country, the number of fatal overdoses — which reached 70,237 in 2017 — will rise sharply in the coming years. (Healy, 2/1)

The Washington Post: Combating The Opioid Crisis One Doctor At A Time

Sandeep “Sonny” Bains pulled up to Lyons Family Medicine in the pre-dawn dark armed with coffee, doughnuts and glossy brochures about pain treatments. “What can I help you with for acute pain?” he inquired of father-and-son primary-care doctors Michael and Zachary Lyons as he was ushered into a wood-paneled back office. Bains’s quick drop-ins are modeled on those used by pharmaceutical sales reps to pump up sales. (Johnson, 2/1)

Arizona Republic: ASU Study Finds Traces Of Opioids In Tempe's Wastewater

Concentrations of four different types of opioids were found in wastewater tested in north Tempe. The data was found by studying untreated sewage for drug compounds found in prescription opioid drugs such as fentanyl, oxycodone, and codeine, as well as illicit drugs like heroin. (Pineda, 2/1)

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