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Tag: Subsys

  • Insys Execs Used Rap Video To Push Higher Doses Of Fentanyl Spray

    Insys Execs Used Rap Video To Push Higher Doses Of Fentanyl Spray

    The sales video parodied A$AP Rocky’s hit single “F—in’ Problems.”

    Jurors for a racketeering, fraud and conspiracy trial in Boston involving former Insys Therapeutics CEO John Kapoor saw a sales video made by the pharmaceutical manufacturer that showed company employees rapping about increasing prescription dosages and dancing with an individual dressed as a bottle of its powerful fentanyl spray Subys.

    Kapoor and four other former Insys managers and executives are accused of conspiring to pay doctors in exchange for prescriptions for Subsys, a fentanyl-based medication intended for use by cancer patients with severe pain. Kapoor and the other defendants have denied the charges.

    In the video, a parody of A$AP Rocky’s 2012 single “F—in Problems” which prosecutors said was shown during a national sales meeting in 2015, salesmen and other individuals rap about “titration,” a process by which employees persuade medical professionals to increase the strength of a prescription until their patients reach a certain dosage.

    At one point in the video, the person dressed as a Subsys bottle – which is notated with 1,600 micrograms, its highest dosage – is reportedly revealed to be Insys’ then-vice president of sales, Alec Burlakoff.  

    In November 2018, Burlakoff pled guilty to a charge of racketeering conspiracy, and according to NBC News, is expected to cooperate with prosecutors in the case against Kapoor.

    Another former Insys executive, ex-CEO Michael Babich, testified during the current trial that Kapoor encouraged employees to push for high dosages of Subsys so they would continue taking the drug.

    Attorneys for Kapoor claimed that Burlakoff was the architect of the kickback scheme, which according to CBS News, handed out more than $2 million to 18,000 doctors in 2016 alone.

    Kapoor’s lawyers also alleged that Burlakoff and Babich sought to reduce their sentences by providing false testimony against Kapoor, and have claimed that prosecutors have tried to link Insys to the national opioid crisis, noting that Subsys represents a fraction of the prescription opioid market

    Prosecutors, however, claim that Kapoor personally recruited physicians through expensive dinners and high-payment speaking engagements in order to ensure their commitment to higher dosages of Subsys. Kapoor, who resigned from Insys’ board of directors in 2017 after being arrested, along with Burlakoff, for their role in the kickback scheme on the same day that President Donald Trump declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency.

    Subsys, which is reportedly 100 times stronger than morphine, has been alleged to have played a role in hundreds of overdose deaths since the Food and Drug Administration approved it for use as cancer treatment for breakthrough pain in 2012. The drug, which helped to make Insys the best performing public offering in 2013, is now one of several opioid-related assets for which Insys Therapeutics, Inc., is currently seeking a buyer.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Florida Sues CVS, Walgreens For Their Alleged Roles In Opioid Crisis

    Florida Sues CVS, Walgreens For Their Alleged Roles In Opioid Crisis

    The suit claims that the companies failed to stop “suspicious orders of opioids,” and dispensed “unreasonable quantities” of such drugs.

    The state of Florida has named two of the largest drugstore chains in the United States—Walgreens and CVS—as well as Insys Therapeutics, in a lawsuit that alleged that they “played a role in creating the opioid crisis.”

    Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a press release stating that the pharmacy giants and Insys, which manufactured the fentanyl-based medication Subsys had been added to a state-court lawsuit filed on May 15, 2016 against Purdue Pharma, L.P.—the manufacturer of OxyContin—and other pharmaceutical manufacturers for allegedly contributing to the opioid epidemic with their opioid-based products.

    The suit against CVS and Walgreens alleges that the companies failed to stop “suspicious orders of opioids,” and dispensed “unreasonable quantities” of such drugs from their locations.

    In the complaint, the Attorney General’s Office alleged that Walgreens Co.—the largest drugstore chain in the nation—has distributed vast amounts of opioids throughout the state of Florida, and in some cases, reportedly distributed millions of pills that far outnumbered town populations.

    The suit cites an unidentified Florida town where the Walgreens location is alleged to have sold 285,000 pills in a single month to a town with just 3,000 people.

    According to the suit, some stores reportedly experienced six-fold sales growth for pills in just two years time. Walgreens previously paid a record settlement of $80 million in 2013 for violations of record-keeping and dispensing regulations that allowed oxycodone and other pain medications to be diverted for black market sales.

    The accusations against CVS Healthcare Corp. and CVS Pharmacy, Inc.—the second largest U.S. drugstore chain—claim that the company sold more than 700 million opioid products between 2006 and 2014, including three towns that received and dispensed “huge quantities” of opioids during that time frame.

    CVS also paid $22 million to resolve allegations by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that retail stores in the town of Sanford, Florida sold painkillers that were not prescribed for “legitimate medical purposes.”

    The suit’s allegations against Insys Therapeutics echo similar charges levied against the troubled pharmaceutical firm, which has been accused of paying doctors to prescribe Subsys, a medication for patients with breakthrough cancer pain, to patients without cancer or similar diagnoses.

    The suit cites public records that showed that Insys paid $18.7 million to doctors between August 2013 and December 2016, including one Florida physician who received $270,000 from the company.

    According to data from the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services, more prescriptions for Subsys were written in Florida than in any other state.

    A spokesperson for CVS labeled the lawsuit “without merit” and said that in recent years, the company “has taken numerous actions to strengthen our existing safeguards to help address the nation’s opioid epidemic.”

    View the original article at thefix.com