McKinsey Proposed Paying Pharmacy Companies Rebates for OxyContin Overdoses

[muriel_volestrangler]

When Purdue Pharma agreed last month to plead guilty to criminal charges involving OxyContin, the Justice Department noted the role an unidentified consulting company had played in driving sales of the addictive painkiller even as public outrage grew over widespread overdoses.

Documents released last week in a federal bankruptcy court in New York show that the adviser was McKinsey & Company, the world’s most prestigious consulting firm. The 160 pages include emails and slides revealing new details about McKinsey’s advice to the Sackler family, Purdue’s billionaire owners, and the firm’s now notorious plan to “turbocharge” OxyContin sales at a time when opioid abuse had already killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.

In a 2017 presentation, according to the records, which were filed in court on behalf of multiple state attorneys general, McKinsey laid out several options to shore up sales. One was to give Purdue’s distributors a rebate for every OxyContin overdose attributable to pills they sold.

The presentation estimated how many customers of companies including CVS and Anthem might overdose. It projected that in 2019, for example, 2,484 CVS customers would either have an overdose or develop an opioid use disorder. A rebate of $14,810 per “event” meant that Purdue would pay CVS $36.8 million that year.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/business/mckinsey-purdue-oxycontin-opioids.html

"We're sorry that we have, between us, killed some of our addicted customers. We realise this could affect your profits. Here's an incentive to tide you over until we get some more addicted."

[OAITW r.2.0]

1. Was hoping that this was a Borowitz or Onion source.

This is unbelievable. A bounty paid on dead customers.....

[marble falls]

2. Bounties, basically.

[Newest Reality]

3. Now, those are some sophisticated dealers. The pusher man 2.0.

[MiniMe]

4. There has been a bad side to the oxy shut down

I had a bypass about a year ago. They split my chest open and told me to take Tylenol for the pain, and that's not Tylenol #3, it was plain acetaminophen. So yeah, something needs to be done, but torturing people who are in serious pain is not the answer.