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Pain Pill Giant Purdue to Stop Promotion of Opioids to Doctors
Pain-pill giant Purdue Pharma LP will stop promoting its opioid drugs to doctors, a retreat after years of criticism that the company's aggressive sales efforts helped lay the foundation of the U.S. addiction crisis.
The company told employees this week that it would cut its sales force by more than half, to 200 workers. It plans to send a letter Monday to doctors saying that its salespeople will no longer come to their clinics to talk about the company's pain products.
"We have restructured and significantly reduced our commercial operation and will no longer be promoting opioids to prescribers," the company said in a statement. Instead, any questions doctors have will be directed to the Stamford, Connecticut-based company's medical affairs department.
OxyContin, approved in 1995, is the closely held company's biggest-selling drug, though sales of the pain pill have declined in recent years amid competition from generics. It generated $1.8 billion in 2017, down from $2.8 billion five years earlier, according to data compiled by Symphony Health Solutions. It also sells the painkiller Hysingla.
Also at Reuters, USA Today, The Verge, and CNN.
Previously: City of Everett, Washington Sues OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma
OxyContin's 12-Hour Problem
South Carolina Sues OxyContin Maker Purdue
Related: Opioid Crisis Partly Blamed on a 1980 Letter to the New England Journal of Medicine
President Trump Declares the Opioid Crisis a National Emergency
Study Finds Stark Increase in Opioid-Related Admissions, Deaths in Nation's ICUs
CVS Limits Opioid Prescriptions
Congress Reacts to Reports that a 2016 Law Hindered DEA's Ability to go after Opioid Distributors
Opioid Crisis Official; Insys Therapeutics Billionaire Founder Charged; Walgreens Stocks Narcan
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday February 12 2018, @07:04PM (17 children)
Part One: Don't let Big Pharma "market" drugs to Doctors.
Part Two: Don't let Big Pharma market drugs to Consumers.
A significant if not dominant part of the cost of some drugs is not the R&D but the marketing of that drug. Gee, remember when prescription drugs weren't marketed to consumers? I don't have a problem with consumers being able to research drugs and drug choices. Big Pharma could put them on their website, where they could be Googled, for example. I don't want new drugs being pushed into the face of the masses who suddenly think they need this drug for a problem that they didn't even realize they had.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday February 12 2018, @07:10PM (8 children)
It has been a while - I remember in the 1990s listening to TV news at lunch time, and being constantly bombarded with direct-to-consumer marketing for all sorts of "new" "ask your doctor" drugs, I think a Herpes treatment was the big one, happy looking people kayaking through mountain streams, 3 times an hour for years.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Monday February 12 2018, @07:20PM (7 children)
There can be only one.
Introducing new KuewrZall®. It cures everything from the common cold to insomnia, ingrown toenails, left handedness, baldness, impotence, vomiting, diarrhea, convulsions, seizures, color blindness, internal hemorrhage, hearing loss, skin conditions.
So try it today! Ask your doctor if KuewrZall® is right for you!
Minor side effects may include:
* vomiting
* diarrhea
* convulsions
* seizures
* baldness
* color blindness
* loss of fingernails and toenails
* massive internal hemorrhage
* total hearing loss
* painful oozing boils and blisters on skin
* bleeding from the eyes
* shriveled up hands and feet
* extreme weight loss
* arms and legs eventually fall off
* impotence
* unconsciousness
* death
* zombification
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 5, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Monday February 12 2018, @07:52PM (1 child)
Any similarity to the name of the first immortal of the singularity Ray Kurzweil is entirely intentional.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday February 12 2018, @09:10PM
Intention was to have pronunciation similarity to "cures all".
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday February 12 2018, @07:56PM (2 children)
My wife and I just about died laughing the first time we heard the side effects of Olestra, including "oily discharge..." who, exactly, would use a dietary supplement that causes "oily discharge" and more to the point, who would pour massive amounts of money into marketing such a thing?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olestra#Side_effects [wikipedia.org]
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @04:06AM
Where's the spamtastic "rancid rectum" guy? He'd love that, methinks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @10:54PM
Don't forget Futurama's take on olestra [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday February 12 2018, @08:04PM (1 child)
So you're saying this medication will make me immortal?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Monday February 12 2018, @08:34PM
This drug will make you healthy for the rest of your life.
Technically.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Monday February 12 2018, @07:27PM (3 children)
You make a good point about the ridiculous waste of drug advertising.
Part 3 could be to legalize weed. [drugabuse.com]
Researchers quickly noticed that the rates of fatal opioid overdoses were significantly lower in states that had legalized medical marijuana. In 2010 alone, states with legalized medical marijuana saw approximately 1,700 fewer opiate-related overdose deaths.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday February 12 2018, @07:40PM (2 children)
So legalized medical marijuana leads to lower sales of highly profitable Big Pharma drugs!1
The next danger is that once states realize the increased tax revenue, and the fact that people don't seem to be harmed by medical marijuana2, this will lead to recreational marijuana.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
1but increased sales of snack foods
2obviously they did not see Reefer Madness, nor several episodes of Dragnet in the 1960s
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 12 2018, @08:26PM (1 child)
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I am for the legalization of weed for the same reason I don't intend to use it, I feel that I should be in control of what I do with my body.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday February 12 2018, @09:16PM
Yep. Same here. I'm for legalization. I don't plan to use it any. Or possibly only in small amounts. I just think I should have the option.
Amusing thing. I vacationed on Colorado last June. Visited a dispensary with friends. A box of 8 chocolates was like $30 or something. A bottle of 30 hydrocodone is like $5 and turns out to be much more effective at actual pain relief, based on my testing of the chocolates. So what's with this "all natural" stuff?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 12 2018, @09:43PM (1 child)
IIRC what allowed drug companies to market to doctors and patients/prospective patients was the freedom of speech. I can't remember if the case reached SCOTUS or not, but a restriction of that magnitude may need an amendment.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 13 2018, @02:17PM
OK. How about a framework like this for Big Pharma:
* CAN market to doctors
* can NOT give kickbacks, inducements, paid vacations, etc to doctors, but CAN give free samples of drug
* can NOT market to consumers
* CAN put all your drug information and promotional material on your web site where anyone (doctors, patients, etc) can google it
* MUST prominently include all side effects, information on efficacy, etc.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday February 13 2018, @12:31AM
I live in the only other country in the civilised world that allows TV ads for drugs, and it's awful.
In fact various drug companies have been prosecuted for making all sorts of outrageous claims about their drugs, in particular pain killing drugs that were supposed to work on specific types of pain, but were really just expensive paracetamol.
Bastards.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday February 13 2018, @12:37AM
I asked my sister, who's a doctor, about this phenomenon, and she said that the doctors in general weren't against the marketing to consumers. The main reason for that is that it meant that patients would come in and report the symptoms they were having, and that gave the doctor a chance to actually diagnose a problem that might have been otherwise ignored.
The problem in the case of these pills was not that they were marketed, but that they were marketed with fraudulent and misleading claims to boost sales.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.