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 U.S.
senator launches probe into five top opioid drugmakers
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[March 29, 2017] (Reuters)
- U.S. Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill
sought on Tuesday details from the nation's top opioid drugmakers on
their sales and marketing practices, as lawmakers step up efforts to
tackle the country's deadly opioid crisis.
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 The Missouri senator's investigation comes amid an epidemic of
opioid addiction, with 91 Americans dying everyday as a result of
overdose, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
"This epidemic is the direct result of a calculated sales and
marketing strategy major opioid manufacturers have allegedly pursued
over the past 20 years to expand their market share," McCaskill, the
top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs Committee, wrote in a letter to the drugmakers. (http://bit.ly/2o7pa4p)
McCaskill asked Johnson & Johnson, Mylan NV, Purdue Pharma, Insys
Therapeutics Inc and Depomed Inc for internal estimates of the risk
of abuse, addiction and overdose of opioids.
The companies are the top five U.S. prescription opioid drugmakers
by 2015 sales, according to McCaskill's letter.
Depomed and Purdue Pharma said they were reviewing the letter and
would respond accordingly.
Purdue also said its OxyContin painkiller made up just 2 percent of
the U.S. opioid analgesic prescription market.
Johnson & Johnson said it had received the letter and would address
the senator's request.
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"We believe that we have acted appropriately, responsibly and in the
best interests of patients regarding our opioid pain medications,"
said Jessica Castles Smith, a spokeswoman for Johnson & Johnson unit
Janssen.
Mylan said it is committed to helping find solutions to the issue of
opioid abuse and misuse.
"We welcome the senator's interest in this important matter and we
share her concerns regarding the misuse of prescription opioids," a
Mylan spokeswoman told Reuters in an email.
(Reporting by Ankur Banerjee and Nikhil Subba in Bengaluru; Editing
by Sai Sachin Ravikumar)
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