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: 2) by captain normal on Monday February 12 2018, @06:29PM (4 children)
They are all big dealers turning good people in to junkies. Throw all Big Pharm Pushers in to prison and toss away the keys.
The Musk/Trump interview appears to have been hacked, but not a DDOS hack...more like A Distributed Denial of Reality.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Monday February 12 2018, @06:59PM (3 children)
Throw all Big Pharm Pushers in to prison and toss away the prison.
Satin worshipers are obsessed with high thread counts because they have so many daemons.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday February 12 2018, @08:13PM
FTFY. That's the very profitable circle of capitalism right there: addiction peddlers and their penal peddling pals who lock up said addicts.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by nitehawk214 on Monday February 12 2018, @08:26PM
Yo dawg, I heard you like prisons, so I threw you in your own prison that you bribed politicians to open with "3 strikes" drug laws.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday February 13 2018, @12:15AM
I say we let them go!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z0VMI67a4Y [youtube.com]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---