Purdue have just had their donations to London art galleries blocked
Woah this is significant, the Sackler family have donated serious cash to the arts over the years. But I don't blame those galleries either. I wouldn't want my institution to be associated with a family and an organisation that started a heroin epidemic either.
And they're still going. I had some Yank tell me Purdue is not taken seriously anywhere in the US anymore. I'm like well I'm sure that's true, but it simply does not matter. For one thing they already made over $10 billion from OxyContin sales in the US alone so even if they didn't sell a single pill ever again they're hardly going broke. And for another, they are expanding globally and setting up under the international arm Mundipharma around the world, primarily targeting developing markets like China, Brazil, Portugal, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, Indonesia, Thailand, etc etc... and of course they also want to push into Western Europe where there's plenty of money to be made, including their many arms established here in Cambridge. I have a mate in the Netherlands who tells me it's easy to get oxy over there too. The amount of oxy I see coming from NL backs that claim up. Mostly the Mundipharma brand.
They're well set up to repeat the exact same tactics worldwide. They are handing out tokens so new patients get their first prescription for free... first hit is always free after all. They are putting out videos telling patients that it is impossible to get addicted if they follow their doctor's instructions. They are putting out ads on TV using celebrities to encourage people to see their doctors for aches and pains, while at the same time flying doctors out to resorts and paying "pain specialists" millions to give talks encouraging those doctors to get over their "opiphobia" and prescribe more painkillers.
If you want to read a very good article about Purdue's international expansion check it out here, it's excellent, well researched and comprehensive:
With the U.S. medical establishment turning away from painkillers, the Sackler family devised a new strategy - put OxyContin into medicine cabinets around the world.
www.latimes.com
Basically they are using identical tactics to what they did in the US.
I'm sure they're working on the NHS too. They would need to target individual practices and CCG's. I have no idea if they're doing this, it's pure speculation on my part, but with so many operations running from the UK it just makes logical sense. I know there's parts of the country where oxy is easy to get prescribed. The guidance from the NHS encourages doctors to write prescriptions for the Longtec brand. So that's Purdue.