John Kapoor, who founded Insys Therapeutics, was sentenced
to 5½ years in prison for Big Pharma crimes including the marketing of
fentanyl, a product only approved in the USA for cancer break-through
pain. See news item on https://www.ft.com/content/a27bbc80-3d35-11ea-a01a-bae547046735
‘US pharmaceutical executives have been put on notice that
they could be held criminally liable for fuelling America’s epidemic of opioid
addiction, after the founder of the drugmaker Insys was sentenced on Thursday
to five-and-a-half years in prison for masterminding a scheme to bribe doctors
to prescribe a dangerous painkiller.’
Despite causing great satisfaction in some quarters, such prosecutions are unlikely to make much difference to opioid deaths currently. In America, where addiction to prohibition is endemic, opioid use has now moved from prescription drugs back to the black market where we know regulation has no effect on price and little effect on availability.
Comment by Andrew Byrne .. any replies best to ajbyrne@ozemail.com.au
Along the same line, relating to Mundipharma in Australia: Wall St Journal article.
“OxyContin Made The Sacklers Rich. Now It’s Tearing Them
Apart.” https://www.wsj.com/articles/oxycontin-made-the-sacklers-rich-now-its-tearing-them-apart-11562990475
“Federal prosecutors said that starting in 2010, Indivior falsely marketed its film as being safer and less prone to abuse than cheaper tablet forms, illegally earning billions of dollars in a "nationwide scheme" to bill healthcare providers and insurers including Medicaid.”
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/11/740856948/reckitt-benckiser-agrees-to-pay-1-4-billion-in-opioid-settlement
