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FILE – This May 8, 2007, photo of the record shows Purdue Pharma's offices in Stamford, Connecticut. On Wednesday, September 5, 2018, the company whose prescription opioid marketing practices are responsible to help fund an effort to create an antidote for overdoses at a lower cost. (AP Photo / Douglas Healey, File)
After hundreds of lawsuits over the drug giant Purdue Pharma over the years, the Colorado Attorney General is suing the creator of OxyContin for his "important role in spreading the opioid epidemic."
The lawsuit alleges that Purdue Pharma LP and Purdue Pharma Inc. misled Colorado doctors and patients about the potential for prescription opioid addiction and continued to push them. And the news indicates that former president and president of the company, Richard Sackler, has patented a new drug to help addicts to opioid withdrawal.
"Purdue's drugs, coupled with their reckless marketing, stole the children of their parents, the families of their sons and daughters and destroyed the lives of our friends, neighbors and colleagues," Colorado Attorney General Cynthia said Thursday. Coffman. declaration. "Although no amount of money can bring home loved ones, it can offset the enormous costs engendered by Purdue's intentional misconduct."
The lawsuit states that Purdue Pharma "minimized the risk of opioid addiction", "exaggerated the benefits" and "advised health professionals that they were violating their Hippocratic oath and were not treating their patients unless the statement from the Colorado Attorney General's Office.
But Purdue Pharma "vigorously" denied the accusations Friday in a statement to the Washington Post, saying that although it shares "the state's concern about the opioid crisis," it did not induce prescription opiates. In error.
"The state claims that Purdue acted inappropriately by communicating with prescribers about scientific and medical information that the FDA has specifically considered and continues to approve," said a spokesman. of Purdue Pharma in the release. "We believe that it is inappropriate for the state to substitute its judgment for the judgment of regulatory, scientific and medical experts of the FDA."
In 2016, there were more than 63,000 drug overdose deaths in the United States and more than 66% of them were attributed to opioids, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC states that illegal opioids and prescription opioids, which are commonly used to treat pain, have been associated with addiction, overdose and death.
In 2007, three former and current employees of Purdue pleaded guilty to criminal charges, admitting that they had falsely led doctors and their patients to believe that OxyContin was less likely to be mistreated. than other drugs in its class, according to The New York Times. Then, earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Purdue was planning to stop promoting the drug.
Now, it seems, a new venture is only exacerbating the outcry.
The Financial Times reported that Sackler, whose family owns Purdue Pharma, a multibillion dollar company, patented a new drug earlier this year, a form of buprenorphine, a mild opiate used to relieve withdrawal symptoms. However, some express their indignation at the fact that the Sacklers, who have mainly benefited from opioid addiction, may soon benefit from the antidote.
"It is reprehensible that Purdue Pharma has done for our public health," said Luke Nasta, director of Camelot, a New York-based treatment center for addiction and alcoholism. He told the paper that the Sackler family "should not be allowed to sell other synthetic opiates, including opioid substitutes."
The patent description recognizes the risk of opioid dependence:
"Although opioids have always been known to be useful in the treatment of pain, they also have the potential for addiction because of their euphoric activity. Thus, if opioids are taken by healthy human subjects exhibiting drug-seeking behavior, they can lead to psychological and physical dependence.
"These generally undesirable characteristics of opioids can, however, become important in certain scenarios, such as drug substitution therapies. One of the fundamental problems of illicit drug abuse among drug addicts, who depend on the constant absorption of illicit drugs such as heroin, is the drug-related criminal activities that these drug addicts resort to. raise enough money to fund their addiction. Continuing pressure on drug users to obtain money for drug purchases and concomitant criminal activity is increasingly recognized as a major factor against effective and sustainable withdrawal and abstinence drugs.
The patent states that the drug could be used in both drug replacement therapy and in the management of pain.
Purdue Pharma did not respond to requests for comment on the new drug, but in response to the complaint in Colorado, the company said, "We share the state's concerns about the opioid crisis. Although our opioid medications account for less than 2% of total prescriptions, we will continue to work with the state to provide meaningful solutions to this public health problem. "
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