How OxyContin Was Sold to the Masses

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, Storytelling, New, Society & Culture, Yorker, Wnyc, Books, Remnick, Politics, Arts, David

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 October 2017

⏱️ 22 minutes

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Summary

When OxyContin came on the market, in 1995, physicians were understandably wary of the addictive potential of a powerful new opioid. As Patrick Radden Keefe reports, the manufacturer, Purdue Pharma, aggressively marketed OxyContin to physicians, claiming that the drug’s delayed-release mechanism could limit the risk of addiction. Instead, OxyContin led to many new addictions, and many addicted patients eventually sought street drugs like heroin. Steven May started at Purdue Pharma as a sales rep in 1999, and years later went on to allege fraud against Purdue as a participant in a whistle-blower lawsuit (which was dismissed on procedural grounds). May tells Keefe that he was trained to market the drug as one “to start with and to stay with,” despite seeing early on its addictive potential. Purdue Pharma is a privately held company controlled by members of the Sackler family, who have a net worth of thirteen billion dollars. The Sacklers have donated handsomely to cancer research, medical schools, art museums, and universities. But Keefe tells David Remnick that the Sacklers have donated “nothing for the opioid crisis. Nothing for addiction treatment. If there is any sense in that family that they bear any moral culpability for where we are today, they’re not acting on it.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is real strength to God.
0:04.0	The One World Observatory is straight of the block to West Boulevard and make that right.
0:10.0	They didn't break that, but they have pretty good access to those people.
0:15.0	She actually, she's...
0:16.0	She's...
0:17.0	So that's happening.
0:19.0	So that's happening.
0:24.0	It seems like an incredible story here on many fronts.
0:29.6	From one world trade center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:33.9	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour.
0:35.8	I'm David Remnick.
0:37.0	When the drug, OxyContinontin first came into the market in 1995, it was advertised as a breakthrough.
0:44.2	An opioid that would manage pain better and would actually reduce the potential for addiction.
0:50.2	But just two decades later, OxyContin is a name that's become almost infamous in American life as the opioid crisis reaches truly awful proportions.
1:00.2	The New Yorker's Patrick Radin-Keefe has been reporting on Purdue Pharma, the company that developed OxyContin and the Sackler family, which controls it.
1:09.0	One of the people Patrick spoke with was a man named Stephen May,
1:12.3	an insider who saw exactly how the company's marketing worked. May is a former sales rep for Purdue,
1:18.1	and he started there in 1999 as sales of Oxycontin were booming. Tell me, for starters,
1:25.1	how did you first come to get into pharmaceutical sales?
1:31.8	Well, actually, I actually had a neighbor that lived near me back in the late 90s, who was a
1:39.8	pharmaceutical sales representative, and I saw that he had a really successful career, and, you know,
1:45.6	it was something that I personally wanted to get into. I mean, I knew that the economic benefit
	...

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