Pharma Executives Now Face Jail Time for their Role in the Opioid Epidemic

Laurence F. Doud III, 79, former CEO of Rochester Drug Cooperative, and John Kapoor, 79, founder and former CEO of Insys Therapeutics, are thought to be the first executives at pharmaceutical companies sentenced to jail time for their role in creating America’s devastating opioid epidemic.

Doud, who ran a pharmaceutical distribution corporation, is facing jail time for dispensing drugs to locations he knew would sell the drugs illegally. Kapoor, who ran a pharmaceutical manufacturing corporation, is facing jail time for bribing doctors to prescribe the highly addictive pain medications his company produced.

Laurence Doud

“Laurence Doud, Former CEO Of Pharmaceutical Distributor, Sentenced To 27 Months In Prison For Conspiring To Unlawfully Distribute Controlled Substances And Defrauding The DEA.” That is the headline of a press release by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York on March 8th, 2023. Doud was sentenced for conspiring to distribute oxycodone and fentanyl unlawfully.

The case, the evidence, and the sentencing provide one of the most clear-cut and egregious violations of the law on the part of an opioid pharma exec. Damian Williams, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, spoke to the gravity of the case. “Laurence Doud cared more about his own paycheck than his responsibility as CEO of RDC [Rochester Drug Cooperative] to prevent dangerous opioids from making their way to pharmacies, drug dealers, and people struggling with addiction,” said Williams. “The sentence imposed today holds Doud responsible for shipping massive amounts of dangerous and highly addictive oxycodone and fentanyl to pharmacies that he knew were illegally dispensing those controlled substances and reaffirms this Office’s commitment to seeking justice for the many victims of the opioid epidemic.” The case of Laurence Doud provides a textbook example of how opioid manufacturers and distributors committed harm in the 2000s and 2010s by intentionally distributing dangerous, highly addictive opioids to pharmacies that were dispensing the drugs illegally.

Like many other executives at pharma distributors, Doud ignored warning signs that pharmacies were placing extremely suspicious prescription orders, warning signs that would have alerted Doud that such pharmacies were illegally dispensing the drugs. Doud also went further by knowingly shipping opioids to pharmacies and other distribution sites where he knew illegal distribution activity was being carried out.

John Kapoor

“Defendant sentenced for his role in bribing practitioners to prescribe highly addictive pain medication, often when medically unnecessary.” That is the headline of a press release by the United States Attorney’s Office of the District of Massachusetts on January 30th, 2020. Kapoor orchestrated a scheme to bribe practitioners to prescribe Subsys, a fentanyl-based pain medication, rather than his competitors’ products.

Kapoor developed Subsys, a spray delivery system for generic fentanyl-based medication. Once developed, Kapoor marketed Subsys as a premium product [even though it was a generic] while exercising tight control on all aspects of corporate decision-making around the drug, how it was produced, how it would be marketed, who would have insight into what the drug was and how it worked, and how the medication would be pitched to doctors.

“Out of pure greed, Insys executives, from John Kapoor on down, bribed doctors to prescribe this powerful and highly addictive narcotic to people who did not need it.”

 

Kapoor also hired several top executives who became co-conspirators in the criminal scheme to bribe practitioners to prescribe Subsys to patients, even when medically unnecessary. United States Attorney Andrew E. Lelling spoke to this point. “Out of pure greed, Insys executives, from John Kapoor on down, bribed doctors to prescribe this powerful and highly addictive narcotic to people who did not need it,” said Lelling. “Despite increasing public fears of a drug epidemic fueled by pain pill prescriptions, these defendants, led by Kapoor, ploughed ahead, setting weekly quotas for doctors on their payroll, urging them to prescribe Subsys in higher and higher doses, all so they could make millions of dollars at patients’ expense.” Similar to the case of Laurence Doud, the case of John Kapoor highlights how opioid manufacturers pressured, bribed, and lied to doctors to get them to increase their prescribing limits, even as there was no present need among American patients for greater prescriptions of opioid pain relievers.

What About Those Currently Addicted to Opioids?

Corporate execs like John Kapoor and Laurence Doud facing criminal sentences for the opioid crisis may be what shifts the pharma industry away from pushing addictive medications, as now a legal precedent has been set in the form of a real, tangible price for executives to pay when they get caught pushing doctors to prescribe addictive pharmaceuticals.

While we need corporate accountability and pharmaceutical corporations who focus on innovating non-addictive pain relief options rather than pushing addictive pills, a change in how Big Pharma operates following criminal convictions for executives does not improve conditions for those Americans currently addicted to opioids.

According to a research paper published on January 1st, 2023, about three million U.S. citizens are addicted to opioids. For these individuals, no shift within pharma operations will help them, as they are already hooked on a combination of prescription opioid pain relievers, heroin, fentanyl analogs, and synthetic opioids. These three million Americans need residential drug rehabilitation services to help them overcome their life-threatening opioid dependencies.

Residential drug rehab centers provide struggling addicts with the environment, tools, support, counseling, life skills, and resources they need to get to the bottom of why they became addicted to drugs in the first place. So empowered, such individuals can begin building their lives anew, only this time relying on healthy mechanisms and coping strategies for tackling life without drugs.

If you know someone who became a victim of prescription opioids and who is now addicted to these drugs, please help them enter a residential drug rehab center as soon as possible. Please don’t wait until it is too late.

Sources:

• USAO. “Laurence Doud, Former CEO Of Pharmaceutical Distributor, Sentenced To 27 Months In Prison For Conspiring To Unlawfully Distribute Controlled Substances And Defrauding The DEA.” United States Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, 2023. justice.gov

• USAO. “Founder and Former Chairman of the Board of Insys Therapeutics Sentenced to 66 Months in Prison.” United States Attorney’s Office, District of Massachusetts, 2020. justice.gov

• NIH. “Opioid Addiction.” National Institutes of Health, 2023. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov