Richard Sackler, a former president of Purdue Pharma, which is owned by the Sackler family, told a launch party in 1996 the impact of OxyContin on America would be similar to a blizzard, a hurricane, a volcano, and earthquake. Years later, the soaring rate of prescriptions led to a deadly epidemic
A member of the family that owns OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma told people at the prescription opioid painkiller's launch party in the 1990s that it would be 'followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition,' according to court documents filed Tuesday.
OxyContin and Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma are at the center of lawsuits across the country accusing the drug industry of being responsible for an opioid crisis that killed 72,000 Americans in 2017.
The details of the speech by Richard Sackler were made public on Tuesday in a case brought by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey that accuses Purdue Pharma, its executives and the Sackler family of deceiving patients and doctors about the risks of opioids and pushing prescribers to keep patients on the drug longer.
The documents provide information about former Purdue Pharma President Richard Sackler's role in overseeing sales of OxyContin that hasn't been public before.
According to the filing, Richard Sackler, then senior vice president responsible for sales, told the audience at the launch party to imagine a series of natural disasters: an earthquake, volcanic eruption, hurricane and blizzard.
'The launch of OxyContin Tablets will be followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition. The prescription blizzard will be so deep, dense, and white,' he said, according to the documents.
'Over the next twenty years, the Sacklers made Richard's boast come true,' lawyers in the attorney general's office wrote. 'They created a manmade disaster. Their blizzard of dangerous prescriptions buried children and parents and grandparents across Massachusetts, and the burials continue,' they wrote.
The Massachusetts litigation is separate from some 1,500 federal lawsuits filed by governments being overseen by a judge in Cleveland.
