Days before the money-losing opioid drug firm Endo International filed for bankruptcy last week, the company paid chief executive Blaise Coleman an $11.85 million bonus, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. It was, in fact, the latest installment of an eye-popping $55.5 million in pre-bankruptcy bonuses paid over 10 months to Coleman and three other top executives at the drug firm, which faces potentially huge legal liability for its part in the nation’s opioid epidemic. Endo manufactured and marketed hundreds of millions of branded Opana and generic opioid pain pills. Endo paid the first bonuses last November when it considered an earlier bankruptcy date. The firm drug paid a second round of bonuses right before the actual bankruptcy filing in Manhattan on Aug. 16, court and regulatory records show. Endo describes them as prepaid incentives and management retention. Pre-bankruptcy bonuses reward executives for failing enterprises, critics say. They aren’t scrutinized by the bankruptcy court or creditors, and they siphon money out of the funds available for the business, or settling debts.
