Purdue Pharma Pleads Guilty To Greatly Contributing To The Country’s Ongoing Opioid Crisis; Paid Doctors To Write Patients Prescriptions For Its Painkillers

Purdue Pharma has pleaded guilty to contributing to the opioid epidemic that has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the United States. 

On Tuesday, Purdue Pharma, one of the leading OxyContin makers, pleaded guilty to three federal criminal charges related to its role in creating the nation’s ongoing opioid crisis, CNN reports. The privately-held pharmaceutical company’s board chairman Steve Miller pleaded guilty on behalf of the company during a virtual federal court hearing. The counts include one of dual-object conspiracy to defraud the United States and to violate the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and two counts of conspiracy to violate the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute writes Lauren del Valle of CNN. 

During the virtual hearing, the company admitted to lying to the DEA about having a program that would prevent prescription drugs from being transitioned into the black market despite telling the agency they did. In addition to the lie, they gave the DEA misleading information to raise Purdue Pharma’s manufacturing quotas, AP News reports. The company also admitted to paying doctors through a speakers program to get them to write more prescriptions for its painkillers. But there’s more. Purdue Pharma also admitted to paying an electrical medical records company to send doctors information on patients that encouraged them to prescribe opioids. 

The guilty pleas are a part of a criminal and sill settlement announced last month by the Stamford, Connecticut-based company and the Justice Department, writes Geoff Mulvihill of AP News. The company will be ordered to pay $8.3 billion in penalties and forfeitures. The company will directly pay the federal government $225 million. 

The affluent Sackler family owns the company; they have agreed to pay $225 million to the federal government to settle civil claims. While the family has yet to be charged criminally, that still could happen in the future. 

“Having our plea accepted in federal court, and taking responsibility for past misconduct, is an essential step to preserve billions of dollars of value” for the settlement it is pursuing through bankruptcy court, the company said in a statement, via AP News. “We continue to work tirelessly to build additional support for a proposed bankruptcy settlement, which would direct the overwhelming majority of the settlement funds to state, local and tribal governments to abate the opioid crisis,” the statement read.

More than 470,000 Americans have died because of the ongoing drug overdose crisis.  According to Community Catalyst, “from 2016 to 2017, the mortality rate among Black, non-Hispanic individuals rose by 25 percent, compared to the 11 percent increase among white, non-Hispanic individuals.”