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Tag: purdue pharma bankruptcy

  • Sacklers Pulled $13B From Purdue Prompting States To Push Back On Settlement

    Sacklers Pulled $13B From Purdue Prompting States To Push Back On Settlement

    “The Sacklers used the profits from their illegal scheme to become one of the richest families in the world…” twenty-four states argued in court documents.

    The Sackler family reaped up to $13 billion in profits from Purdue Pharma, money that some states say the family is trying to protect from going to settlements in the opioid lawsuits. 

    Now, states are trying to stop the family from getting a nine-month stay to protect them from opioid-related lawsuits, The Washington Post reports. The Sacklers are asking for the stay as part of the Purdue bankruptcy case. However, the states say that the bankruptcy can move forward without protecting the family. 

    “The Sacklers used the profits from their illegal scheme to become one of the richest families in the world—far wealthier than the company they ran,” twenty-four states argued in court documents. “Now, the Sacklers seek to leverage Purdue’s corporate bankruptcy to avoid their own individual accountability.’’

    “They’ve extracted nearly all the money out of Purdue and pushed the carcass of the company into bankruptcy.”

    The settlement agreement with Purdue includes $3 billion in funds from the Sackler family, but states say that’s not enough when the family pulled more than four times that amount in profits. 

    Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey, who has been one of the most outspoken critics of the family, said, “The Sacklers want the bankruptcy court to stop our lawsuits so they can keep the billions of dollars they pocketed from OxyContin and walk away without ever being held accountable. That’s unacceptable.”

    North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein echoed that sentiment, “The Sackler family is trying to take advantage of the fact that they’ve extracted nearly all the money out of Purdue and pushed the carcass of the company into bankruptcy. That’s unacceptable. Multibillionaires are the opposite of bankrupt.’’

    Some States Feel Short-Changed By Settlement Offer

    Twenty-four states have agreed to the settlement, and an equal number—plus Washington, D.C.—are filing legal steps to oppose it. While some states are desperate for resources, others feel short-changed by the agreement.

    Daniel S. Connolly, an attorney for part of the Sackler family, insisted that the agreement was fair, and the family should be protected from further lawsuits. 

    “The Sacklers have agreed to relinquish their equity in Purdue and to contribute at least an additional $3 billion to the fight against the opioid crisis,” he said. “The stay, if granted, will allow parties to focus their efforts on this goal rather than on litigation that will waste resources and delay the deployment of solutions to communities in need.”

    He said that talking about $13 billion is unrealistic. 

    “The distribution numbers do not reflect the fact that many billions of dollars from that amount were paid in taxes and reinvested in businesses that will be sold as part of the proposed settlement,” he said. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Could The Purdue Settlement Set The Stage For A Public Pharma System?

    Could The Purdue Settlement Set The Stage For A Public Pharma System?

    “A United States public option for pharmaceutical production would address a range of problems in an industry rife with market failure.”   

    After Purdue Pharma settles its bankruptcy cases, the company will be disbanded and reformed, according to settlement plans. Rather than selling its drugs for profit, the new spin-off company will sell drugs to benefit cities and states devastated by the opioid crisis.

    Purdue will be no more, and a “public beneficiary company” will take its place. 

    Writing for The New Republic, Dana Brown and Isaiah J. Poole of The Democracy Collaborative, argue that this should be a first step in transforming the pharmaceutical industry from public to private. 

    “A United States public option for pharmaceutical production would address a range of problems in an industry rife with market failure,” Brown and Poole write.  

    The Case For Public Pharma

    Unscrupulous tactics like those undertaken by Purdue, the company behind OxyContin, and other opioid manufacturers are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the industry’s problems, they write. There’s the fact that some medications are too expensive for the people who need them the most (including insulin, which has been in the news for high prices). Or, the fact that companies only research drugs that they believe can generate profit. 

    “The case for a public option is simple,” the authors write. “First, publicly owned pharmaceuticals are free of the structural need to appease profit-hungry shareholders and are thus able to focus on public health priorities.”

    Other Countries Have Public Options

    Sweden, Brazil, China and India all have some sort of public pharmaceutical industry and those countries have contributed to global drug development. 

    “These examples expose the emptiness of industry arguments that public involvement in the drug industry will stifle innovation,” Poole and Brown write. In fact, with no need to spend on advertising or to direct profits to investors, a public pharmaceutical company would be better able to invest in research and thus make new innovations, they write. 

    The authors point out that controlling diabetes currently costs about $6,000 per person annually, a cost that has tripled in the past 10 years. A public pharmaceutical company could cut that cost to about $70, according to some analysis. 

    “Coupled with reforms such as a national pharmaceutical institute—which would ensure public investments in medical research can be harnessed for public benefit instead of co-opted exclusively for private profit—these public enterprises would produce both new medications and generics, and could offer them at or even below cost,” Poole and Brown write. 

    Learning From the Big Tobacco Settlement

    The authors point out that little lasting change came from the massive settlement with Big Tobacco in 1998. However, the opioid settlement could be different, if it sparked interest in public pharmaceuticals. 

    Poole and Brown conclude, “The U.S. could once and for all move beyond having to tolerate an industry that subordinates public health to shareholder greed.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Sacklers Accused Of Concealing $1 Billion In Wire Transfers

    Sacklers Accused Of Concealing $1 Billion In Wire Transfers

    The New York Attorney General’s Office was able to identify shell companies that were used to conceal the Sacklers’ riches.

    Members of the Sackler family have been accused of trying to conceal their wealth, as they try to settle some 2,000 lawsuits alleging that the family-owned company Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin, contributed to the opioid crisis.

    New York Attorney General Letitia James said that her office discovered about $1 billion in wire transfers made by the Sackler family to various entities including real estate holdings.

    The wire transfers were uncovered as a result of just one of 33 subpoenas issued by James to various financial institutions, seeking information about the family’s wealth. Forbes listed the Sacklers as the 19th richest American family in 2016 with a net worth of $13 billion.

    Shell Companies

    James’ office was able to identify shell companies that were used to conceal the Sacklers’ riches.

    “While the Sacklers continue to lowball victims and skirt a responsible settlement, we refuse to allow the family to misuse the courts in an effort to shield their financial misconduct,” said James in a statement. “The limited number of documents provided to us so far underscore the necessity for compliance with every subpoena.”

    Sackler Rep Says Transfers “Were Perfectly Legal”

    A representative for Mortimer D.A. Sackler, a former Purdue Pharma board member, denied James’ suggestion that the family has been trying to protect their wealth from the barrage of lawsuits from states, counties, cities and tribal governments across the U.S.

    “There is nothing newsworthy about these decade-old transfers, which were perfectly legal and appropriate in every respect,” they stated. “This is a cynical attempt by a hostile AG’s office to generate defamatory headlines to try to torpedo a mutually beneficial settlement that is supported by so many other states and would result in billions of dollars going to communities and individuals across the country that need help.”

    A lawyer for Purdue Pharma argued in a court filing against subpoena action by the AG’s office, but a lawyer for the AG’s office said they have already helped uncover “shell companies” used by the family to hide their wealth.

    “Already, these records have allowed the State to identify previously unknown shell companies that one of the Sackler Defendants used to shift Purdue money through accounts around the world and then conceal it in at least two separate multimillion-dollar real estate investments here in New York, sanitized (until now) of any readily-detectable connections to the Sackler family,” said David E. Nachman in a letter to the court.

    On Monday, it was reported that Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy after reaching a tentative settlement that could be worth up to $12 billion over time, according to AP News. However, not everyone is onboard with the proposed settlement.

    View the original article at thefix.com