Purdue Pharma and Execs Get Off Lightly in OxyContin Case

After hearing wrenching testimony from parents of adult children who died of overdose of painkiller OxyContin, U.S. District Judge James Jones Friday handed down a verdict that required the manufacturer of the drug, Purdue Pharma L.P., its former president, former chief medical officer, as well as its former lawyer to pay a $634.5 million fine.

The judge ordered the fine on the grounds the company was providing inadequate information about the possible addictive nature of the drug. OxyContin is a trade name for the long-release version of oxycodone, a pain killer.

The money paid as fines would be divided among a number of recipients. Besides the families and individuals who had sued the company, other recipients would include Medicaid programs, law enforcement agencies – federal as well as state, a prescription monitoring program from Virginia, and also the federal government.

Oxycodone is a drug that depresses the central nervous system. It stimulates the opioid receptors in the CNS and induces in users a range of feelings, ranging from respiratory depression to analgesia to euphoria. Medically prescribed to treat severe pain, it is addictive and has side effects as well.

The medically prescribed method of ingesting OxyContin is to gulp down the whole tablet. However, if taken in crushed form, it induces a heroin-like high. Other forms of consuming the drug to get this high is by snorting or injection.

The three former top executives of Purdue Pharma who have been fined are Michael Friedman, who retired in June as Purdue's president, general counsel Howard Udell, and former chief medical officer Paul Goldenheim. Each of them plead guilty to misbranding the drug.

As per the sentence handed down to them, the three executives will have to cough up a total of $34.5 million between them, out of the total $634.5 million fine that has been declared. The judge also ordered the company to remain on probation for the next five years.

With the sentencing ended an emotional hearing that included statements by people for and against the drug. While most people testified about the pain of addiction and losing loved ones to the drug, there were also people who testified that the drug had indeed helped them overcome the pain.

The trial itself was a high profile one, with suggestions of being tainted by political influence. With many of the speakers at the trial asking for prison sentences for the accused, the fact that they got off with just a heavy fine fuelled rumors of political interference.

It is open knowledge that former New York City Mayor Rudolf Guiliani had worked with the federal investigators on behalf of Purdue. The judge, while saying he had agreed to the fines with reservations, waved away suggestions that the reduced punishment was influenced by politicking.