McKinsey Suggested Purdue Pharma Offer a Rebate for Each OxyContin Overdose

Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=57223"><span class="small">Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe, The New York Times</span></a>

Saturday, 28 November 2020 13:34

Excerpt: "When Purdue Pharma agreed last month to plead guilty to criminal charges involving OxyContin, the Justice Department noted the role an unidentified consulting company had played in driving sales of the addictive painkiller even as public outrage grew over widespread overdoses."

Demonstrators outside the company headquarters of Purdue Pharma, owned by the Sackler family, in Stamford, Connecticut, on Thursday. (photo: Erik McGregor/LightRocket/Getty Images)

McKinsey Suggested Purdue Pharma Offer a Rebate for Each OxyContin Overdose

By Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe, The New York Times

28 November 20

Court filings reveal consultants’ talk of a records purge during the opioid crisis, and shed new light on sales advice given to the billionaire Sackler family and their drug company, Purdue Pharma.

hen Purdue Pharma agreed last month to plead guilty to criminal charges involving OxyContin, the Justice Department noted the role an unidentified consulting company had played in driving sales of the addictive painkiller even as public outrage grew over widespread overdoses.

Documents released last week in a federal bankruptcy court in New York show that the adviser was McKinsey & Company, the world’s most prestigious consulting firm. The 160 pages include emails and slides revealing new details about McKinsey’s advice to the Sackler family, Purdue’s billionaire owners, and the firm’s now notorious plan to “turbocharge” OxyContin sales at a time when opioid abuse had already killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.

In a 2017 presentation, according to the records, which were filed in court on behalf of multiple state attorneys general, McKinsey laid out several options to shore up sales. One was to give Purdue’s distributors a rebate for every OxyContin overdose attributable to pills they sold.

JComments