Fighting the Crisis

A drug company that makes a powerful fentanyl painkiller spray has engaged in conduct that is “nothing short of evil,” New Jersey’s attorney general said Thursday after the state became the latest to sue.

The lawsuit alleges that Insys Therapeutics Inc.  directed its sales force to have doctors prescribe the drug Subsys for any type of chronic pain even though it was only approved for cancer patients who couldn’t benefit from other opioids.

A hearing three weeks ago held by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.) featured an audiotape of an Insys representative, in a phone call with a pharmacy benefits manager, falsely claiming to be from a Cherry Hill doctor’s office. The rep uses phrases that suggested the patient was diagnosed with cancer and qualified for the drug when she did not.

Medicare was billed more than a quarter-million dollars. The disabled patient, Sarah Fuller, 32, of Stratford eventually died of an overdose that a civil suit filed by her estatealleges resulted from Insys’ practices.

Overdose deaths related to the synthetic opioid fentanyl have been increasing rapidly around the country but nearly all involve street versions of the drug that are created in clandestine overseas laboratories and mixed with heroin and other substances here.

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