AMERICAN drug maker Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to three criminal charges over its intense drive to push sales of the prescription opioid OxyContin, which stoked a nationwide addiction crisis, the Justice Department said yesterday.

Purdue also agreed to US$8.3 billion (RM35 billion) in fines, damages and forfeitures to settle the criminal case against it, the department said.

In a separate agreement, the billionaire Sackler family, which built Purdue to a pharmaceutical giant on the back of lucrative sales of OxyContin, agreed to pay US$225 million to resolve civil liability charges filed by the Justice Department.

“Purdue, through greed and violation of the law, prioritised money over the health and well-being of patients,” said FBI assistant director Steven D’Antuono.

Purdue, which filed for bankruptcy protection last year, pleaded guilty to one count of fraud and two counts of violating kickback laws over its marketing and sales of OxyContin and two other hydrocodone-based treatments, which involved encouraging distributors and doctors to aggressively push the highly addictive drugs to consumers. 

Even after paying US$600 million for falsely marketing the painkiller as “less addictive”, the Justice Department said, Purdue upped its sales drive and developed new addictive applications which it marketed through a network of 100,000 prescribing doctors and nurse practitioners. – AFP, October 22, 2020.