PURDUE PHARMA
Purdue Pharma was an American privately owned pharmaceutical company, which was owned by the
Sackler family. This company is mainly well known because of its famous opioid painkiller, OxyContin,
a legal prescription drug, approved by the FDA. Purdue pharma promoted the drug as something that
would help end the epidemic of chronic pain, but instead has caused the first wave of deaths caused by
overdose. This was due to the company lying about the effects of addiction in Oxycontin. This was the
start of the opioid crisis and epidemic. Purdue pharma began facing lawsuits to reach a deal with the
bankruptcy plan in order to gain money for addiction treatment and recovery plans.
In the beginning, the company resisted to proceed with the plan. However, as years passed, Purdue
Pharma decided to agree with the bankruptcy plan. One of the proceedings was that they would pay as
much as $6 billion dollars to fix their damage from the opioid crisis. In return, they demanded that all
claims and lawsuits against the company over the opioid crisis would end. Furthermore, this issue is
strongly linked to the American culture as they are one of the top countries that consume and spend most
on medication. Which is one of the hidden factors that caused the increase of overdose deaths and thus
created stigma around addicted people which prevented them from treatment. Moreover, through huge and
heavy promotion by the company the rest of the world was also affected by the crisis and only though
innovation and strategy from healthcare facilities from all around the world, they have been able to create
facilities and treatment and recovery plans for addicted patients.
Purdue Pharma was a private company, which meant that it's under a private owner. They have issue stock
and shareholders but do not trade on public exchanges. The fact that they were a private company also
meant that they had a limited liability and that it was easier to rise capital. Due to this, the family was able
to earn a huge part of their wealth.
In conclusion, Purdue Pharma has faced many lawsuits and claims form the American public where they
were accused of starting the opioid crisis with their popular drug, Oxycontin, where they lied about the
powerful effect of addiction of the drug. Because of this, the company has agreed to a bankruptcy plan
where they would pay around $6 billion in order to fix their damage and to keep investigating treatment
plans.
Citations
Gutteridge, Lloyd. Business Management Study Guide. Oxford, vol. 2014, Oxford Press,
2014.
Feldscher, Karen. “What Lead to the Opiod Crisis?” Harvard T.H.Chain, Harvard public
health, 2 July 2021, www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/what-led-to-the-opioidcrisis-and-how-to-fix-it.
Hoffman, Jan. “Sacklers and Purdue Pharma.” New York Times, 3 Mar. 2022,
www.nytimes.com/2022/03/03/health/sacklers-purdue-oxycontin-settlement.html.