Drug company founder, executives convicted of bribe scheme that fueled U.S. opioid crisis [View all]

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

BOSTON (Reuters) - The founder of Insys Therapeutics Inc and four colleagues were found guilty on Thursday of bribing doctors to prescribe the drugmaker’s addictive painkiller, helping to drive the U.S. opioid drug abuse crisis.

A federal jury in Boston found John Kapoor, who served as the Chandler, Arizona-based drugmaker’s chairman, and his co-defendants guilty of racketeering conspiracy for a scheme that also misled insurers into paying for the drug.

Kapoor, 75, is the highest-ranking pharmaceutical executive convicted in a case tied to a drug crisis that has led to tens of thousands of overdose deaths annually. His 2017 arrest came the same day U.S. President Donald Trump declared the epidemic a public health emergency.

Prosecutors charged that Kapoor oversaw a wide-ranging scheme to bribe doctors nationwide by retaining them to act as speakers at sham events at restaurants ostensibly meant to educate clinicians about its fentanyl spray, Subsys.

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BUSINESS NEWS MAY 2, 2019 / 2:16 PM / UPDATED AN HOUR AGO
Nate Raymond
2 MIN READ


Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-insys-opioids/drug-company-founder-executives-convicted-of-bribe-scheme-that-fueled-u-s-opioid-crisis-idUSKCN1S81VB