The feds brought down their fentanyl billionaire — make that former billionaire.
John Kapoor, the founder, former chairman, and former chief executive of Insys Therapeutics, has been convicted of a racketeering conspiracy that involved bribing doctors and lying to insurance companies to boost sales of Subsys, Insys’ powerful opioid drug. Four other Insys executives were also convicted. The conviction is important because all too often when powerful executives orchestrate marketing maneuvers that put patients at risk, they go unpunished even as their companies pay fines or their lieutenants are prosecuted.
Subsys followed a well-trod playbook for powerful opioids. It packaged the pain drug fentanyl, roughly 80 times more potent than morphine, in a mouth spray. It’s like Binaca, but sprayed under the tongue instead of into the throat. The spray allows fentanyl to rapidly be absorbed into the bloodstream, which is important for patients with cancer who have what is known as breakthrough pain: their pain breaks through the high doses of opioids they are already taking.
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