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OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma reportedly exploring bankruptcy
OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma is exploring filing for bankruptcy to address potentially significant liabilities from thousands of lawsuits alleging the drug manufacturer contributed to the deadly opioid crisis sweeping the United States, people familiar with the matter said on Monday.
The deliberations show how Purdue and its wealthy owners, the Sackler family, are under pressure to respond to mounting litigation accusing the pharmaceutical company of misleading doctors and patients about risks associated with prolonged use of its prescription opioids.
Purdue denies the allegations, arguing that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved labels for its opioids carried warnings about the risk of abuse and misuse associated with the drugs.
Filing for Chapter 11 protection would halt the lawsuits and allow the drug maker to negotiate legal claims with plaintiffs under the supervision of a U.S. bankruptcy judge, the sources said.
No "Big Tobacco" moment for Purdue Pharma. Cut and run.
Previously: City of Everett, Washington Sues OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma
OxyContin's 12-Hour Problem
South Carolina Sues OxyContin Maker Purdue
Tens or Hundreds of Billions of Dollars Needed to Combat Opioid Crisis?
Purdue Pharma to Cut Sales Force, Stop Marketing Opioids to Doctors
Colorado Attorney General Sues Purdue Pharma
Related: The Dutch Supply Heroin Addicts With Dope and Get Better Results Than USA
U.S. Opioid Deaths May be Plateauing
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 04 2019, @09:41PM (4 children)
Some people don't actually like being addicted. When you're selling basically heroin, perhaps you should tell your patients that and disclose the very real downsides?
People react differently to addictive substances. Be happy if you can have them for breakfast, lunch and dinner but don't be a simpleton and assume everybody can.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 04 2019, @09:57PM (1 child)
I agree. I was on Rx Fentanyl for 10 years, got fed up with the side effects (memory problems, constipation, even a seizure) and slowly quit everything. That crap turns you into a zombie. It took a year to slowly detox and adjust to the pain. My pain tolerance is now so high I can have dental work done without a local. It sucks to be in pain, but it sucks even more when you can't remember your kids growing up. The memories did eventually return.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday March 05 2019, @04:47AM
I was on a high dose of prescription patch Fentanyl that long, and while there was some constipation, it wasn't severe (or at least, not more so than my body the rest of the time) and I didn't experience memory lapses, zombiefy my brain, or otherwise have all that much of an effect. The absolute worst side-effect I got from it was that if I didn't change the patch at least every 3 days, my skin would become intolerably hypersensitive.
Even a quarter-pill of the percocet they gave me recently to replace it (after I pointed out that eating Naproxen like candy when one has fucked kidneys isn't a good move), OTOH, has such severe zoned-out-sleepy-zombie effects that I don't dare take more than 1/8 of a pill if I need to stay conscious, and don't dare drive my car on any dose. It also causes a mild euphoria that I can easily see would cause a serious emotional addiction if I used it more than once in a blue moon. Given the dose is the same number of morphine-equivalents as the Fentanyl I'd dropped down to, that doesn't seem like a good exchange to me.
I naturally have a stupidly high pain tolerance level, but my body has other ways of forcing me to notice that it's unhappy that mess with my quality of life. I'd rather be able to just get on with living my life, not be stuck feeling too fatigued either from a pill or because my body's in pain I can't fully sense.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 04 2019, @09:59PM (1 child)
Some people don't like knowing what the truth is. When you're making false equivalencies, perhaps you should state that you might not know what most providers actually tell their patients. (Unless, of course, you'd care to share your medical credentials, AC, that would indicate what you know of besides your personal experience and anecdotes you've read?) Then you can study enough pharmacology to learn differences between various opioids. But instead you'd like to pretend that a guarded swimming pool is exactly like an unguarded ocean - you can drown in both, but people who swim responsibly, have a lifeguard present, and are ready to acknowledge risks for cramping rarely drown.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 04 2019, @10:19PM
I'm not an MD but I can read. These are documented facts.
Federal officials said that internal Purdue Pharma documents show that company officials recognized even before the drug was marketed that they would face stiff resistance from doctors who were concerned about the potential of a high-powered narcotic like OxyContin to be abused by patients or cause addiction.
As a result, company officials developed a fraudulent marketing campaign designed to promote OxyContin as a time-released drug that was less prone to such problems. The crucial ingredient in OxyContin is oxycodone, a narcotic that has been used for many years. But unlike other medications like Percocet that contain oxycodone along with other ingredients, OxyContin is pure oxycodone, with a large amount in each tablet because of the time-release design.
-- https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/business/11drug-web.html [nytimes.com]
It's not very common for corporations to pay $600 million fines and it is very rare for corporations to admit guilt. They know we all know they did it and there was no way out for them, so they absolutely had to admit it.