opioid marketing News

State’s Purdue Opioid Suit Tests Holding Family, Purdue Directors Liable for Crisis

Massachusetts took Purdue Pharma LP to task in a Boston courtroom Friday, blaming the opioid maker and the billionaire Sackler family that owns it for causing “thousands of people to suffer and many to die.” The state has proof Purdue …

Doctor in Oklahoma Trial Says J&J Pushed Opioids Even After Abuse Became Known

Oklahoma’s star witness told a state judge that Johnson & Johnson pressed doctors to prescribe its painkillers even as the potentially fatal addictive threat posed by the drugs became clear more than a decade ago. The judge, Thad Balkman, is …

Teva to Pay Oklahoma $85 Million to Avoid Trial Over Opioid Marketing

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. agreed to pay $85 million to settle an Oklahoma lawsuit claiming that illegal marketing of its opioid painkillers contributed to a public health crisis in the state. The deal, announced Sunday, was reached just as the …

Jury Finds Insys Founder, Execs Guilty of Racketeering in Opioid Sales

Insys Therapeutics Inc. founder John Kapoor was convicted of a racketeering conspiracy that drove sales of a highly addictive opioid while contributing to a nationwide epidemic. Federal jurors in Boston found that Kapoor conspired with four other executives to bribe …

Opioid Trial Winds Down; Insys Execs Deny Bribing Doctors, Duping Insurers

A U.S. prosecutor portrayed Insys Therapeutics Inc. founder John Kapoor and other former executives as greedy and heartless during closing arguments in their racketeering trial over the promotion of the opioid painkiller Subsys. Kapoor and four other ex-Insys managers “exploited” …

Family Behind Purdue Pharma Facing Second Suit Over Role in Opioid Crisis

The billionaire family that owns opioid-maker Purdue Pharma LP has been accused by local governments in a new lawsuit of causing the nationwide public-health crisis involving pain-killing medicines that has left hundreds of thousands of Americans dead from overdoses. More …

Jurors Told How Insys Chief Used Competitors’ Data to Drive Own Opioid Sales

Insys Therapeutics Inc. founder John Kapoor didn’t cut corners when it came to collecting intelligence on opioid sales, using the data to beat down his employees and to spur doctors to prescribe more of his highly addictive painkiller, a Boston …

How High-Pressure Insys Prescription Call Center Lied to Insurers to Sell Opioids

The goal for Insys Therapeutics Inc.’s call center in Phoenix was simple: persuade insurers to authorize at least 70 prescriptions a week of its expensive opioid spray. Workers would get bonuses for surpassing the goals, a former call center manager …

Former Insys CEO Pleads Guilty to Opioid Bribes; Agrees to Work with Prosecutors

The former chief executive of Insys Therapeutics Inc. pleaded guilty on Wednesday to participating in a nationwide scheme to bribe doctors to prescribe an addictive opioid medication and has agreed to become a government witness. Michael Babich, who resigned as …

One Drugmaker Sues Another to Pay Damages from Opioid Marketing Lawsuits

Allergan Plc on Thursday sued Pfizer Inc. to require its rival to cover any damages it is forced to pay as a result of hundreds of lawsuits claiming Allergan deceptively marketed an opioid it acquired from a company Pfizer bought. …