Behind the Scenes, McKinsey Guided Companies at the Center of the Opioid Crisis
In 2017, less than two years later, the FDA took the rare step of requiring Endo to withdraw Opana from the market because of the significant public health consequences of its abuse. The company responded accordingly.
In the five years from the emergence of blood disease clusters in Tennessee to the withdrawal from the drug market, analgesics have generated more than $ 844 million in revenue.
In Indiana, law enforcement officials dissolved the drug trafficking circle in 2016. A man admitted that he had obtained Opana in Detroit and sold it to dealers in bulk. He was sentenced to six years in prison.
“Everything is collapsing because of medical care, schools, welfare departments, medicines, medicines you have made available,” the judge scolded him.
“Of course, you’re not responsible for all of that, but you did your part.”
“The opioid crisis is terrible”
In June 2017, Tom Ratkovich stood up to speak at a healthcare conference in Chicago hosted by his employer McKinsey.
“I am today,” Why are we prescribing and dispensing opioid prescriptions to people who are very prone to abusing them, which we know, or at least we can know, Do you want to continue paying? “
Senior partner Ratkovich was not a member of McKinsey’s pharmaceutical business. Instead, his team focused more and more on the opioid epidemic, focusing on dealing with complex healthcare issues using data analysis tools.
In hopes of expanding this work, Ratkovich told the audience, “We are launching a new center focused on opioids and insights.”
The new venture’s customer list now includes state governments, insurance companies, and healthcare systems. One of McKinsey’s more ambitious efforts was Philadelphia. Highest mortality rate From opioid overdose in the country.
In 2019, consultants spent almost two months working with the city government, according to two local civil servants at the time. Both praised McKinsey’s work. This work was provided to the city for free, but was later shelved after Covid-19.
Still, when Ratkovich’s team tried to fight the opioid epidemic, the company didn’t stop serving the company. And, at least twice, as the document shows, the draft of the publication produced by Latkovic’s team was handed over to a consultant for review by pharmaceutical company clients. The purpose of the pharmaceutical industry manager’s writing was to assess “whether this could create a wave from social media and journalists that could harm pharmaceutical company clients.”
As negative news coverage and proceedings against Purdue increased, some consultants were internally panicked that scrutiny could extend to McKinsey.
In 2019, around the time of the Philadelphia project, McKinsey decided to stop advising companies on opioids. After the 15-year relationship with Purdue University was announced as part of a court submission by the Massachusetts Prosecutor’s Office. Since Latkovic’s 2017 speech, McKinsey has collected a $ 7.8 million fee from Purdue, the document states.
The disclosure McKinsey advised Purdue led to discussions within the company. “We may not have done anything wrong, but did you ask yourself what the negative effects of the work we were doing and how we can minimize it?” Wrote.
Dr. Gataku, the driving force behind McKinsey’s Purdue and Endo Universities, has found himself in the limelight. This time he created the issue for himself, just as he did for the executives of a pharmaceutical company.
“The opioid crisis is horrifying,” he wrote. “Acknowledge it in advance.” But by advising clients to develop products that are hard to abuse, “we were working directly on the solution to the public health crisis. It’s definitely a solution, not a silver bullet. It’s a plan. “
In 2020, a document published as part of Purdue’s proceedings showed that Dr. Ghatak and another consultant, Martin Elling, had discussed the destruction of records. McKinsey immediately fired them.
The company settled with the state prosecutor’s chief in early 2021.
Some of McKinsey’s former clients faced potentially catastrophic damages in court. Purdue filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019, and Mallinckrodt did the same the following year. Johnson & Johnson previously sold its drug business to a private investment company and settled numerous proceedings related to opioid marketing. The company said in a statement that it was “appropriate and responsible.”
Endo also highlighted the possibility of bankruptcy in a wave of proceedings over the sale of opioids, especially opanas. The company said in a regulatory filing that it received a subpoena from a US law firm in western Virginia in 2020. The subpoena was convicted by Purdue University executives a few years ago. This time, according to Endo’s disclosure, the office was seeking information about McKinsey.
Top illustration by Mark Weaver.
