Less pain, more gain for Purdue?

In 2007 privately-owned Purdue Pharma agreed to pay $634.5 million in one of the largest ever pharmaceutical settlements after it admitted to the US Federal Court that it had misled and defrauded physicians and consumers over the addictive properties in its opioid pain medication OxyContin.

Between 1996 and 2001, the medication, which received FDA approval in 1996, generated nearly $3 billion in revenue for Purdue, but many have linked America’s nationwide opioid abuse epidemic with the company’s aggressive marketing campaign, which touted the drug as having a low risk of addiction.

Purdue launched a reformulated version of OxyContin in 2010, which included an abuse-deterrent mechanism, making the pill difficult to crush and snort. And, according to researchers at Washington University, this led to a reduction in opioid abuse but the endless string of lawsuits against Purdue continues.