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From what I can quickly find on the web, I'd estimate that they sold about $35 billion worth of Oxycontin. That doesn't include all of the other opioids they s

From what I can quickly find on the web, I'd estimate that they sold about $35 billion worth of Oxycontin. That doesn't include all of the other opioids they sold through Purdue and other affiliated companies. I'd say it's likely that the vast majority of the Sackler fortune is from Oxycontin. If you rob a bank you can't just give the money back if you get caught, and you certainly can't just give half of it back.

loeg 7y ago
> If you rob a bank you can't just give the money back if you get caught, and you certainly can't just give half of it back. How much less oxycontin do you think they'd have sold if their advertising was less reprehensible? Notably, Purdue produced some of the first extended-release opioid formulations on the market, which does have some real value even without exaggerated sales. It developed MS Contin (XR morphine) in 1984 and OxyContin (XR Oxycodone) in 1996. (CONTIN™ is Purdue's extended-release drug delivery system developed in the 70s.) OxyContin was also the first "Abuse-deterrent Formulation" (ADF) approved by the FDA, for whatever value that has[1]. Today, ten such formulations are approved and of those, five are actually available. So tl;dr, I don't think your metaphor is especially apt. They should be punished for their sales tactics, which were outrageous, but there seems to be this mentality that all opioid manufacture is evil, and I don't believe that. [1]: https://anesthesiology.pubs.asahq.org/article.aspx?articleid=2667599#195475682 https://anesthesiology.pubs.asahq.org/article.aspx?articleid...
- cameldrv 7y ago
  The problem is that they used the XR aspect of it to argue (evidently without basis) that patients would not become addicted to it. There was loads of lobbying of the FDA/DEA, sending doctors to seminars in Hawaii, I even remember numerous op-eds in the NYT arguing that doctors were committing malpractice for undertreating pain. This led to the rise of the Pain Management Clinic, which primarily existed to prescribe opioids. Without the FDA/DEA lobbying by Purdue, these clinics would have been shut down by the DEA for prescribing too many opioids. The message that this huge PR/Sales/Lobbying effort was sending was: XR opioids have a low addiction potential, and not prescribing them, or preventing them from being prescribed is malpractice and insensitive to patients that are in pain. I don't doubt that many fewer people are in significant pain now, but we also have something like 4% of the entire U.S. population addicted to opioids.
  - loeg 7y ago
    Did any of this happen after 2001? The advertising from 1995-2001 was already litigated and plead guilty and fined.

loeg 7y ago

> If you rob a bank you can't just give the money back if you get caught, and you certainly can't just give half of it back. How much less oxycontin do you think they'd have sold if their advertising was less reprehensible? Notably, Purdue produced some of the first extended-release opioid formulations on the market, which does have some real value even without exaggerated sales. It developed MS Contin (XR morphine) in 1984 and OxyContin (XR Oxycodone) in 1996. (CONTIN™ is Purdue's extended-release drug delivery system developed in the 70s.) OxyContin was also the first "Abuse-deterrent Formulation" (ADF) approved by the FDA, for whatever value that has[1]. Today, ten such formulations are approved and of those, five are actually available. So tl;dr, I don't think your metaphor is especially apt. They should be punished for their sales tactics, which were outrageous, but there seems to be this mentality that all opioid manufacture is evil, and I don't believe that. [1]: https://anesthesiology.pubs.asahq.org/article.aspx?articleid=2667599#195475682 https://anesthesiology.pubs.asahq.org/article.aspx?articleid...

cameldrv 7y ago
The problem is that they used the XR aspect of it to argue (evidently without basis) that patients would not become addicted to it. There was loads of lobbying of the FDA/DEA, sending doctors to seminars in Hawaii, I even remember numerous op-eds in the NYT arguing that doctors were committing malpractice for undertreating pain. This led to the rise of the Pain Management Clinic, which primarily existed to prescribe opioids. Without the FDA/DEA lobbying by Purdue, these clinics would have been shut down by the DEA for prescribing too many opioids. The message that this huge PR/Sales/Lobbying effort was sending was: XR opioids have a low addiction potential, and not prescribing them, or preventing them from being prescribed is malpractice and insensitive to patients that are in pain. I don't doubt that many fewer people are in significant pain now, but we also have something like 4% of the entire U.S. population addicted to opioids.
- loeg 7y ago
  Did any of this happen after 2001? The advertising from 1995-2001 was already litigated and plead guilty and fined.