Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Monday September 16 2019, @11:08PM   Printer-friendly
from the A-Rose-By-Any-Other-Name dept.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49711618

In the face of thousands of lawsuits about the alleging abusive practices contributing to the opioid crisis in the US, Purdue Pharma (makers of OxiCotin) are filing Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection. If the courts agree, this would allow them to restructure their debts and continue operations.

"Under the terms of the [proposed] deal, Purdue is to be dissolved and the money raised - estimated to be about $10bn-$12bn (£8bn-£9.7bn), including a minimum cash contribution of $3bn from the Sackler family - will go towards settling the lawsuits. The Sacklers have also offered an additional $1.5bn from the eventual sale of Mundipharma, another pharmaceutical firm owned by the family.

Several of the states that oppose the deal, such as New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts, have questioned how Purdue came up with the contribution figure.

The states want the Sackler family to put in more of its own money into the deal."

Note: Bankruptcy is not what regular people think it is. Similar to the "kill" command in Unix/Linux, there are lots of versions which may or may not do what people think. As an example, see: https://www.credit.com/debt/filing-for-bankruptcy-difference-between-chapters-7-11-13/


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by hwertz on Tuesday September 17 2019, @06:10AM (2 children)

    by hwertz (8141) on Tuesday September 17 2019, @06:10AM (#895025)

    As far as I'm concerned, the Sackler family should have to put EVERYTHING into the deal.

    This isn't the usual misbehaving pharma company; per media reports, the Sacklers were caught dead to rights via E-Mail exchanges encouraging addiction. They set up sales contests, rewarding salesmen and pharmacists who they knew (via sales records showing number of pills sold going up far faster than number of patients buying) were getting people increasingly addicted to these pills. The Sacklers encouraged this, and when some employees brought up concerns about the clear sales to addicts, the replies quite crassly indicated increased sales and profits were their only concerns.

    The icing on the cake -- the treatment centers they started. Now, you could say "Well, they felt bad about it and wanted to help people get treatment." Oh, no. The Sacklers were caught dead to rights (again via E-Mail) viewing it as strictly a second profit center, so they could get people addicted, profit from that, then profit from them a second time when they decide to go to treatment and dry out.

    Google it, these E-Mails really are shocking. I would not have expected anyone outside a B-Grade movie supervillain to be as callous as these people.

    P.S. One of New York's objections to the bankruptcy filing is they caught the Sacklers, like some cheezy supervillan, siphoning $1 billion out of the company so they could claim "Whoops the company is broke, too bad" and keep the money themselves. Needless to say, they want that money put back in to pay off some of that settlement.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 17 2019, @12:39PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 17 2019, @12:39PM (#895111)

    And how is this any different than giving people colonoscopies known to cause colon cancer, telling people to wear sunscreen that blocks UVA but not UVB so you get skin cancer, etc?

    I'd like to see all these people go down. Too bad the BS in the healthcare industry is TBTF at this point.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 17 2019, @12:42PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 17 2019, @12:42PM (#895112)

      And I also disagree with the idea the "patients" are pure victims here. Plenty of people have been beating the drums about corruption and incompetence in the healthcare industry for a long time, it is hard not to be exposed to it. Half the people harmed were probably rabid vaxxinators who got angry at anyone who questioned it.