(New York) American consulting firm McKinsey will pay $650 million as part of a deal with the United States government to, once again, avoid a lawsuit over its role in the opioid crisis that has caused nearly 800,000 deaths since 1999.
Updated yesterday at 1:23 p.m.
Elodie MAZEIN
Agence France-Presse
This so-called deferred prosecution agreement (DPA), filed Friday in a Virginia federal court, aims to end criminal proceedings after five years of supervision.
The prestigious firm was accused of having contributed to the opioid crisis by advising pharmaceutical groups such as Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of the painkiller OxyContin.
He admitted to “knowingly and intentionally conspiring with Purdue Pharma and others to aid and abet in providing miscommunication about prescription drugs,” the text states.
And also to have, “through the actions of a senior McKinsey official, knowingly destroyed and hidden archives and documents” to obstruct investigations.
The group dismissed two employees quickly after the start of the scandal for destroying documents in this affair.
The DPA also specifies that McKinsey has already paid out nearly a billion dollars in several agreements concluded outside of court since 2019 in the United States.
“We are deeply sorry for our services to our former client Purdue Pharma and for the actions of a former manager who destroyed documents,” McKinsey responded in a statement.
“This terrible public health crisis and our past work for opiate manufacturers will always be sources of deep regret,” he continued, stressing that he accepted in the DPA “responsibility for (his) conduct”.
This agreement “closes this chapter in the history” of McKinsey.
Virginia Attorney General Chris Cavanaugh, in a press conference with state counterparts and investigators, noted that it was “the first consulting firm held criminally liable for advice that resulted in the commission of a crime by his client.”
No narcotics
McKinsey committed several years ago to no longer advising companies on the development, manufacturing, promotion, marketing, sale or use of an opiate or any other narcotic.
He notably advised Purdue Pharma to help it boost sales of OxyContin after a sales dip, a strategy called “TurboCharge”, according to Mr. Cavanaugh.
According to him, the 650 million DPA represents 85 times the fees received by the firm as part of this strategic mission.
The cabinet also recommended that Purdue – which abandoned opiates in 2018 – focus on high dosages, considered the most lucrative, but very addictive.
Overprescription of this drug is widely considered to have triggered the opioid crisis in the United States.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), more than 700,000 people died in the country between 1999 and 2022 from an overdose linked to taking opiates, obtained on prescription or illegally.
For the first time since 2018, the number of deaths linked to opiates (mainly fentanyl) decreased slightly in 2023.
Targeted by an avalanche of lawsuits, the Purdue laboratory declared bankruptcy in 2019, but it encountered several rejections by the courts of its bankruptcy plan.
He appealed to the Supreme Court in Washington, but it annulled the latest version at the end of June, which provided for the creation of a new entity and the payment of at least $5.5 billion over eighteen years.
The Sages ruled that the plan exempted the Sackler family, which owns Purdue, from any future lawsuits from victims. The Sacklers are accused of having aggressively promoted OxyContin while knowing of its highly addictive nature, which earned them tens of billions of dollars.
Large drug distributors such as the CVS, Walgreens and Walmart chains, or even a subsidiary of the French advertising giant Publicis, have also been prosecuted for their role in this crisis.
