2 February 2020

Fentanyl manufacturer and top executives jailed for unlawful marketing.

Fentanyl manufacturer and top executives jailed for unlawful marketing. Financial Times 24 January 2020


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

 “Opioid executive admits to ‘no morals’ ahead of prison term”

‘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  

And further: alleged actions denying life-saving buprenorphine treatment by hiking costs to patients and insurers. 
“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