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U.S. Senator Launches Probe into Five Top Opioid Drugmakers

By Reuters Staff (Reuters) | on April 18, 2017 | 1 Comment
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U.S. Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill has sought details from the nation’s top opioid drugmakers on their sales and marketing practices, as lawmakers step up efforts to tackle the country’s deadly opioid crisis.

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The Missouri senator’s investigation comes amid an epidemic of opioid addiction, with 91 Americans dying everyday as a result of overdose, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“This epidemic is the direct result of a calculated sales and marketing strategy major opioid manufacturers have allegedly pursued over the past 20 years to expand their market share,” McCaskill, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, wrote in a letter to the drugmakers. (http://bit.ly/2o7pa4p)

McCaskill asked Johnson & Johnson, Mylan NV, Purdue Pharma, Insys Therapeutics Inc. and Depomed Inc. for internal estimates of the risk of abuse, addiction, and overdose of opioids. The companies are the top five U.S. prescription opioid drugmakers by 2015 sales, according to McCaskill’s letter.

Depomed and Purdue Pharma said they were reviewing the letter and would respond accordingly. Purdue also said its OxyContin painkiller made up just 2 percent of the U.S. opioid analgesic prescription market.

Johnson & Johnson said it had received the letter and would address the senator’s request.

“We believe that we have acted appropriately, responsibly and in the best interests of patients regarding our opioid pain medications,” said Jessica Castles Smith, a spokeswoman for Johnson & Johnson unit Janssen.

Mylan said it is committed to helping find solutions to the issue of opioid abuse and misuse.

“We welcome the senator’s interest in this important matter and we share her concerns regarding the misuse of prescription opioids,” a Mylan spokeswoman told Reuters in an email.

Topics: AddictionMortalityOpioid abuseOverdosePainkillerPublic HealthPublic PolicySenateSenator Claire McCaskill

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One Response to “U.S. Senator Launches Probe into Five Top Opioid Drugmakers”

  1. April 24, 2017

    Derek McCalmont Reply

    Amazing! First physicians are informed by government that they are doing an inadequate job caring for patient’s pain, which is the 5th vital sign, and that they will be paid less or penalized if they don’t improve. With this incentive the number of patients being prescribed narcotics for even minor injuries skyrockets. This ready availability in turn results in both an increase in the number of opiate addicted patients and in a burgeoning market for diverted medication which is sold to both the original patients when they are unable to acquire sufficient quantities from their physicians and whole new groups of individuals that never had a painful condition in the first place. Economics being what they are, buyers in the illicit marketplace for opiates discover that they can obtain heroin much more cheaply and at times more readily so they move on to that drug. Not surprisingly an epidemic of opiate overdoses ensues. Now we are informed by a Senator that this is all the fault of evil drug companies marketing campaigns! Nothing to do with bad regulation or personal responsibility. Just another example of evil corporate America. Good grief!

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