Court Documents Show Purdue’s Richard Sackler Did Not Want to Correct Misinformation About Strength of OxyContin
Biospace.com | February 22, 2019
Court documents have shown how invested Richard Sackler was in the drive at Purdue Pharma to make OxyContin a success. A recent deposition that was unsealed has revealed just how far Sackler was willing to go to make that happen. STAT News, in concert with ProPublica, reported that Purdue executives developed a plan to conceal just how powerful of an opioid treatment OxyContin actually is. The leadership team elected to not correct misinformation that doctors had regarding the strength of the drug, STAT said. The reason being, that false impression resulted in increased sales of the drug. According to the deposition that was unsealed, Purdue executives said they were “well aware of the view held by many physicians” that OxyContin was actually weaker than morphine – in fact, it’s much stronger. The deposition was one made by Richard Sackler during legal proceedings in the state of Kentucky against Purdue Pharma, the company Sackler once helmed. Purdue had fought to keep the deposition sealed, STAT said. However, with multiple lawsuits brought against the company, STAT said that interest in the contents of the Sackler deposition has increased.