Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Sackler Family Could Withdraw Pledge To Pay $3B Of Personal Fortune If Opioid Lawsuits Aren't Blocked
The New York Times: Purdue Says Sacklers May Walk From Opioid Deal If Judge Does Not Block Cases
Members of the Sackler family could withdraw their pledge to pay $3 billion as part of a nationwide deal to address the opioid crisis if a bankruptcy judge does not block outstanding state lawsuits against them and their company, Purdue Pharma, Purdue lawyers said in a legal complaint. Whether the threat is posturing or real, the move by Purdue, the maker of OxyContin, to inject it into the company’s bankruptcy proceeding could jeopardize the tentative settlement it reached last week with representatives of thousands of local governments that have brought lawsuits against it. Two dozen state attorneys general who have sued the company in their own courts have signed on to the agreement, too. (Hoffman, 9/19)
The Washington Post: Who Are The Sacklers, The Family Behind Maker Of OxyContin?
For a family with its name on a wing of one of the world’s most famous museums and a school at a prestigious university, members of the Sackler clan have done a remarkable job of vanishing from public life. The family owns OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, which filed for bankruptcy this week as part of an effort to settle some 2,600 lawsuits accusing it of helping spark the national opioid crisis that has killed more than 400,000 people in the U.S. in the last two decades. (Mulvihill, 9/19)
NPR: As Drugmakers Face Opioid Lawsuits, Some Ask: Why Not Criminal Charges Too?
Purdue Pharma, facing a mountain of litigation linked to the opioid epidemic, filed for bankruptcy in New York this week. The OxyContin manufacturer and its owners, the Sackler family, have offered to pay billions of dollars to cities and counties hit hard by the addiction crisis. But that's not good enough for critics such as U.S. Rep. Max Rose. (Mann, 9/19)
The Wall Street Journal: Purdue Led Its Opioid Rivals In Pills More Prone To Abuse
Purdue Pharma LP’s bankruptcy filing this week punctuates a fall from its perch as one of the pharmaceutical industry’s most recognizable marketers of opioid pain pills. At its height, Purdue’s signature OxyContin product notched billions of dollars in annual sales, fueled in part by booming demand for high-dose pills. Purdue made about 10% of pills containing oxycodone—the active ingredient in OxyContin—that were purchased by U.S. pharmacies from 2006 to 2012, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of opioid sales data maintained by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. (Walker and Hopkins, 9/19)
Meanwhile —
The Wall Street Journal: A Tennessee Pharmacy Bought Nearly A Million High-Dose OxyContins In 2008
A grocery-store pharmacy in Knoxville, Tenn., bought nearly one million high-dose OxyContin pills in 2008, third-most in the nation, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from the Drug Enforcement Administration. The Journal obtained the data from plaintiffs’ attorneys representing municipalities in lawsuits against Purdue and other pharmaceutical-supply-chain players for their alleged roles in the opioid crisis. Sales data for other years hasn’t been made public. (Walker, 9/19)
The Wall Street Journal: Fentanyl Drug Finds New Home In First Opioid Crisis Bankruptcy Deal
Insys Therapeutics Inc. won bankruptcy-court approval Thursday to sell Subsys, the opioid that spawned criminal racketeering charges against its top executives and set off investigations and lawsuits that plunged the company into bankruptcy. It is believed to be the first bankruptcy sale of a pharmaceutical drug that played a role in fueling the nationwide opioid epidemic, said Judge Kevin Gross of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. (Brickley, 9/19)
