Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty yesterday to criminal charges that it misled the federal government about sales of its blockbuster painkiller OxyContin, the prescription opioid that helped fuel a national addiction crisis, the New York Times reported. The admission brought a formal end to an extensive federal investigation that led to a multibillion-dollar settlement between the company and the Justice Department. “The abuse and diversion of prescription opioids has contributed to a national tragedy of addiction and deaths,” Jeffrey A. Rosen, the deputy attorney general, said in a statement. “Today’s convictions underscore the department’s commitment to its multipronged strategy for defeating the opioid crisis.” Purdue’s chairman, Steve Miller, acknowledged in a remotely conducted hearing in federal court in New Jersey that in order to meet sales goals, the company told the Drug Enforcement Administration that it had created a program to prevent OxyContin from being sold on the black market, even though it was marketing the drug to more than 100 doctors suspected of illegally prescribing OxyContin. Purdue also pleaded guilty to paying illegal kickbacks to doctors who prescribed OxyContin and to an electronic health records company, Practice Fusion, for targeting physicians with alerts that were intended to increase opioid prescriptions. Practice Fusion has paid $145 million in fines for taking those kickbacks. The company agreed last month to plead guilty to criminal charges and face criminal and civil penalties of about $8.3 billion as part of the settlement with the Justice Department. A federal bankruptcy judge in New York approved the deal last week. The settlement included $3.54 billion in criminal fines and $2 billion in criminal forfeiture of profits. The department said they were the largest financial penalties levied against a pharmaceutical manufacturer.
