OxyContin Sales Tactics Criticized
May 20, 2001
OxyContin sales over the past four years have surpassed $1 billion dollars. Now, the Food and Drug Administration is concerned about OxyContin abuse by the public. The FDA believes that OxyContin is more abused than any drug released in the past twenty years.
OxyContin, which is manufactured by Purdue Pharma, is a narcotic painkiller often prescribed to cancer patients. The FDA believes that Purdue Pharma has over promoted the drug without warning doctors, pharmacists, and other medical professionals of the likelihood of serious addiction associated with OxyContin. To date, the drug has been associated with hundreds of deaths.
Purdue provided doctors with free trips, often to Florida, to attend seminars where they were encouraged to treat pain aggressively with a potent painkiller such as OxyContin. In turn, some of the doctors who attended these seminars where then paid to speak to other doctors at one or more of the 700 "pain management" seminars sponsored by the company.
One of the benefits of OxyContin was supposed to be its time-release formula that would allow patients to sleep through the night. Because of its time-release characteristics, medical experts did not foresee abuse of OxyContin. Cocaine and heroin are popular because users can get an immediate high. Drug addicts have found a way to circumvent the time-release formula of OxyContin simply by crushing the tablet or liquefying it and injecting it into the bloodstream.
Purdue Pharma spokesman, Dr. J. David Haddox, believes that the company has promoted OxyContin in a responsible manner. "We don't have strong medicines that don't have abuse potential. What we have to do is walk the balance between helping the greater good, knowing there are always some people who will divert drugs." To further promote the company's good intentions of responsible marketing and sales, Purdue Pharma met with Federal agencies to discuss ways to keep the prescription drug out of the hands of abusers.
When OxyContin was introduced, doctors were concerned about treating pain with heavy narcotics due to the possibility of addition. OxyContin is made of a synthetic version of morphine called oxycodone. OxyContin became a popular alternative because of the stigma attached to morphine. "If Grandma is placed on morphine it's like, 'Oh, my God,' but if Grandma comes home placed on OxyContin - that was O.K.," commented Dr. Howard A. Heit, a consultant for Purdue Pharma.
Sales began to skyrocket, and today OxyContin has higher sales than any other narcotic on the market. Some doctors, however, were put off by the sales tactics employed by Purdue Pharma. "All companies market. But these people were in your face all the time," commented Dr. Diane Meier, a pain specialist from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Steve Schondelmeyer, a pharmaceutical economics professor from the University of Minnesota agreed. "Essentially, they bought the doctors' prescriptions. It says to consumers that every time you paid for this drug, you sent your doctor to a nice meeting somewhere."
Several pharmacists also commented that they were unhappy with the sales tactics of Purdue Pharma representatives. In addition, some pharmacists have refused to fill prescriptions of suspected addicts. The Drug Enforcement Administration has looked into the marketing practices of Purdue Pharma and has talked to doctors and pharmacists about monitoring prescriptions.
Over the past two years, there have been several overdose related deaths in patients taking OxyContin. Many of these have taken place in the South, and Purdue believes that the problem is localized. Southern health officials disagree. "They are either very naive about the extent of the problem or they don't understand what it means to have 300 people in your county addicted - the type of pain that causes in a community and in families," stated one doctor.
In order to make the drug less appealing to drug addicts, Purdue Pharma is working to reformulate OxyContin. However, Purdue Pharma is worried that negative publicity surrounding OxyContin will prevent legitimate use of the drug.
-- Article Courtesy of InjuryBoard.com
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