U.S. - Purdue Pharma will stop promoting its opioid drugs to doctors

S.J.B.

S.J.B.

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Capping years of criticism, Purdue Pharma will stop promoting its opioid drugs to doctors
Ben Poston
Los Angeles Times
February 10th, 2018

The manufacturer of the powerful painkiller OxyContin announced this week that it will stop promoting its opioid drugs to doctors after years of criticism and mounting lawsuits, some based in part on a Times investigation.

Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma informed its employees that it was cutting its sales force in half, leaving about 200 representatives in the U.S., who no longer will visit doctors' offices to discuss the company's opioid products.

"We have restructured and significantly reduced our commercial operation and will no longer be promoting opioids to prescribers," the company said in a statement. "Going forward, questions and requests for information about our opioid products will be handled through direct communications with ? our medical affairs department."

The company is facing dozens of lawsuits from cities across the country prompted in part by Times reporting that revealed Purdue had extensive evidence pointing to illegal trafficking of its pills but in many cases did not share it with local law enforcement agencies or cut off the flow of the drugs. The plaintiffs are seeking to hold the company financially responsible for a raging opioid epidemic.

Brandeis University researcher Dr. Andrew Kolodny, a longtime critic of the pharmaceutical industry's role in the opioid epidemic, welcomed Purdue's announcement but said, "It's pretty late in the game to have a major impact."
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Read the full story here.
 
OxyContin Cuts Sales Staff, Stops Advertising and Hawking Doctors

This will definitely impact the amount of pills that are out on the street. Some junkies might have a rough time in the near future possibly.


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ts-sales-staff-wont-hawk-drug-docs/327251002/


The pharmaceutical company that produces the painkiller OxyContin is slashing its sales staff and says it will halt, effective Monday, promotion of opioids to physicians and other health care professionals.
The decision by Purdue Pharma comes as the industry battles an avalanche of lawsuits across the nation related to an epidemic of opioid abuse.
?We have restructured and significantly reduced our commercial operation and will no longer be promoting opioids to prescribers," Purdue Pharma said in a statement.
Indra Cidambi, medical director at the Center for Network Therapy detox program in New Jersey, said she was encouraged by Purdue's announcement. But she warned that tightening the prescription supply already has illegal drug dealers turning out more pills that look like branded prescription meds but can be even more dangerous.
"The decision by a manufacturer to stop pushing opioid pain medications is late, but better late than never," Cidambi told USA TODAY. "Even if we save one life due to this decision, it is worth it."



Purdue's head of medical affairs, Monica Kwarcinski, sent a letter to prescribers updating the company's efforts to support responsible opioid use.
"Effective Monday, February 12, 2018, our field sales organization will no longer be visiting your offices to engage you in discussions about our opioid products," Kwarcinski said in the letter, which was released to media outlets. "Requests for information about our opioid products will be handled through direct communication with the highly experienced health care professionals that comprise our Medical Affairs department."
Purdue said in a statement that it is reducing its sales force by more than 50%. The remaining 200 sales reps will focus on non-opioid drugs such as Symproic, the company said. Symproic is used to treat opioid-related constipation.
More: Opioid makers face hundreds of lawsuits
The company said it has consistently followed opioid guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control, which include a recommendation that opioids not be the first option for chronic pain.


Purdue, a privately held company based in Stamford, Conn., has been slammed with lawsuits claiming the company has downplayed OxyContin's addiction risk. Opioid litigation increased sharply in 2017 when hundreds of cities, counties and states sued opioid makers, wholesalers, distributors and marketers.
The lawsuits accuse the companies of, among other things, misleading prescribers and the public by marketing opioids as a safe substitute for non-addictive pain medications such as ibuprofen. Opioids also have been blamed for a resurgence in heroin use.
The government claims the results have been tragic ? and left government agencies with millions in social and health care costs.
Purdue said in a statement that it "vigorously denies" allegations of misconduct, adding that its products account for only "approximately 2%" of all opioid prescriptions.
"We are deeply troubled by the opioid crisis, and we are dedicated to being part of the solution," the company said.
Opioids are substances that work on the nervous system in the body or specific receptors in the brain to reduce the intensity of pain. The CDC says more than three out of five drug overdose deaths involve opioids ? and that annual deaths from heroin and prescription opioids have increased more than five-fold since 1999, including 42,000 deaths in 2016.
Purdue and three former executives pleaded guilty in federal court a decade ago to criminal charges of misleading the public about the addictive nature of OxyContin, paying more than $630 million in fines and penalties.
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OD->DitM

Why would cutting sales staff affect the street availability? At this point I wouldn't think doctors could be swayed to write more Purdue-brand OxyContin scripts, by a sexy blonde bringing steak dinner coupons anyway (that's for the next opioid, IPC Oxy).

Seriously, it's off-patent and there's more than one company bringing better abuse-deterrent versions to market. I'm surprised they had 200 people still hocking it.

(I could be totally wrong on the street availability, I honestly don't know how those pills get diverted.)
 
It's often the case. Companies often do the right ethical thing. Just as soon as it's no longer more cost effective to do anything else :).
 
embryo923 said:
Yes you are totally wrong on the street availability
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OK, then you mean busty blondes offering steak dinners to doctors if they prescribe more name-brand oxycontin, ALSO go down back alleys doing the same for junkies? No wonder that shit is so popular.
 
LucidSDreamr said:
Why can't opioids be marketed to pain patients and pain doctors....this is fucking stupid.
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Well, dunno about the doctors. But the US as I recall is one of the few countries where you're allowed to market prescription drugs to patients.

The logic being that patients can't buy them anyway directly because it's deemed to need doctor advise. So why should they be advertised too except so they can be compelled to go against or without medical advice.

Doctors have generally opposed direct to patient advertising for this reason as well. Guess they're sick of being hounded by patients wanting what ads tell them to get. That and doctors generally hate anything that lessens their power.

It is true though that it's illegal in many other countries and those countries have had less prescription drug problems.

As for advertising to the doctors, you'd hope they'd be less persuaded by advertising than patients in their prescribing habits. Though I'd say in practice that has.. Not been the case.
 
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