$600 Million fine is not enough

May/11/2007 05:55 Filed in: Pharma Business
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The fine levied against Purdue pharmaceuticals for aggressively marketing Oxicontin and then lying about its potential for addiction is not high enough to send a message to the drug industry that this type of behavior will not be tolerated. The FDA should have put these executives in jail and fined the company $2 billion as this would have told drug industry exec's that if you lie and put patients health at risk your going to be held accountable.



This plea agreement is a sham and for Purdue pharma will be just another expense on the balance sheet. Oxicontin has made billions of dollars in profits over the years and the government should have gone after Purdue where it really hurts..their pocketbooks. I mean here you have a drug company admitting that they lied and as a result putting patients health in jeopardy. This is more than unacceptable this is an outrage and these executives need to go to jail to be held personally accountable. Yes they were each fined but I am sure the company will help them out with that or that they will cash in some of their options to cover the fines.


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I would not have accepted the plea agreement I would have proceeded to trial and alerted opposing counsel that their clients had better get used to group showers and wearing orange jump suits. I would have appointed somebody from the FDA to personally oversea ALL of Purdue's marketing material for the next 5 years and then I would have confiscated the profits from the product for the periods in question. This is the only way to deal with people who put profits ahead of patient health especially when they commit a criminal act and lie about it. It's time to get tougher with weasels.

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