Consulting Firm McKinsey & Company Will Pay $650 Million For Helping Purdue Pharma Increase Opioid Sales
Consulting firm McKinsey & Company has agreed to pay $650 million in a settlement after a federal investigation revealed it assisted Purdue Pharma in increasing the sales of highly addictive opioid OxyContin, according to official court documents reported by AP.
The deal with the US Justice Department and McKinsey stated that the firm will avoid prosecution on criminal charges as long as it pays the total sum and follows a set of specific conditions for five years. These conditions include ceasing any and all work on the sale, marketing, and/or promotion of controlled substances.
Martin Elling, a former McKinsey senior partner, also agreed to plead guilty to obstruction of justice for “deleting documents from his laptop after he became aware of investigations into Purdue Pharma, according to the filings,” according to Geoff Mulvihill of AP.
McKinsey said in a statement it’s “deeply sorry for its work for Purdue Pharma.”
“We should have appreciated the harm opioids were causing in our society and we should not have undertaken sales and marketing work for Purdue Pharma. This terrible public health crisis and our past work for opioid manufacturers will always be a source of profound regret for our firm.”
This trial marks the most recent effort of federal prosecutors when it comes to holding companies accountable who contributed, and are contributing to, the US opioid addiction and overdose crisis that has caused over 80,000 deaths per year.
Within the past eight years, drugmakers, wholesalers, and pharmacies agreed to around $50 billion worth of settlements with governments.
Purdue had paid McKinsey more than $93 million over 15 years for several products that would improve revenue sales of OxyContin. Prosecutors stated McKinsey “knew the risk and dangers” of OxyContin.
“One of the jobs for McKinsey was to identify which prescribers would generate the most additional prescriptions if Purdue salespeople focused on that. That resulted in prescriptions that were not for a medically accepted indication, were unsafe, ineffective, and medically unnecessary, and that were often diverted for uses that lacked a legitimate medical purpose,” the court filing said.
Over the past 10 years, deaths in the US associated with the opioid crisis have been attributed to illicit fentanyl that had been laced in illegal drugs. In previous years, prescription pills were the biggest cause of death.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
