McKinsey Advised Purdue Pharma on How to Supercharge OxyContin Sales During Crisis
"McKinsey does what they do. They charge a lot of money and they do this long review and then they come back with an analysis. And they come back with an analysis that tells them how they can supercharge sales. When you're talking about, at that point, by the time McKinsey was doing this, we already knew that the trail of what OxyContin had left across the US was not very good."
About this episode
On this episode of the Fourth Option Podcast, host Jack Carr interviewed bestselling investigative author Gerald Posner about his groundbreaking book 'Pharma: Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America.' Posner, who has spent decades exposing pharmaceutical industry corruption alongside his wife Tricia, detailed the industry's evolution from Civil War-era morphine production through the modern opioid crisis. The conversation's most explosive revelation concerned early COVID-19 legislation: Posner disclosed that both parties initially included language preventing pharmaceutical companies from owning vaccine patents developed with government money, but that provision was stripped within 8 days, demonstrating pharma's bipartisan power in Washington. Posner also revealed previously unknown details about the Sackler family, including that the brothers who founded Purdue Pharma were card-carrying Communist Party members during the 1950s Cold War era, obtained through FOIA requests. The discussion covered how Purdue ignored a 2007 consent agreement and actually increased aggressive OxyContin marketing, how McKinsey advised them to 'supercharge' sales during the crisis, and how the Supreme Court recently overturned bankruptcy protections that would have shielded the billionaire Sacklers from litigation. Posner explained Arthur Sackler's invention of modern pharmaceutical marketing techniques in the 1950s and how those tactics enabled the opioid epidemic that kills 100,000 Americans annually. The episode also touched on Posner's landmark JFK assassination research in 'Case Closed' and his upcoming work on Swiss financiers who handled Nazi loot. Throughout, Posner maintained his characteristic glass-half-full outlook while documenting institutional failures, emphasizing that while pharmaceutical scientists do heroic work, marketing departments and lack of government oversight have repeatedly prioritized profits over public health.
Key takeaways
- Early COVID relief bills included language preventing vaccine patent ownership by pharma companies, but that clause was removed within 8 days before passage.
- The Sackler brothers who founded Purdue Pharma were card-carrying Communist Party members in the 1950s, revealed through FOIA documents.
- After a $600 million fine in 2007, Purdue Pharma ignored its consent agreement and doubled down on aggressive OxyContin marketing until 2018-2020.
- McKinsey & Company advised Purdue Pharma on how to supercharge OxyContin sales in 2013-2014 despite widespread knowledge of the opioid crisis.
- The Supreme Court overturned bankruptcy court protections for the Sackler family, reactivating thousands of individual lawsuits against them.
- Arthur Sackler invented modern pharmaceutical marketing in the 1950s, creating the drug representative model and making Valium the number one drug for 15 years.
- Top pharmaceutical companies consistently spend more on share buybacks and advertising than on research and development, undermining their pricing justifications.