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 The report, released by Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, said
those efforts led to an Insys employee making misleading statements
to get insurance to cover a prescription for a woman who according
to a lawsuit died after taking Subsys.
The report was the first by McCaskill, the ranking Democrat on the
U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, to
flow out of her investigation into drugmakers' roles in the national
opioid addiction epidemic.
The report came amid a series of federal and state investigations
centered on the marketing of Subsys, an under-the-tongue spray
intended for cancer patients that contains fentanyl.
Fentanyl is a man-made opioid that is 100 times more powerful than
morphine.
In December, federal prosecutors in Boston charged six former Insys
executives and managers, including former Chief Executive Michael
Babich, with engaging in a scheme to bribe doctors to prescribe
Subsys. They have pleaded not guilty.
McCaskill's report said that Chandler, Arizona-based Insys lacked
measures to prevent employees from manipulating the process insurers
and pharmacy benefit managers use to deter over-prescription by
requiring pre-approval of medicines.
The report noted that in June, Elizabeth Gurrieri, a former manager
of reimbursement services for Insys, pleaded guilty to conspiring to
defraud insurers into paying for Subsys.
It also cited the case of Sarah Fuller of New Jersey, who died in
March 2016 after seeking treatment two years earlier for conditions
including back pain, according to a lawsuit her family filed against
Insys.
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McCaskill's report said an audio recording showed that an Insys
employee misled a pharmacy benefit manager to obtain approval for
Fuller's prescription, saying she was calling from a doctor's office
and that the drug was to treat cancer pain.
"Their attempts to manipulate the prescription approval process for
this drug appear to have been systemic, and anyone responsible for
this manipulation deserves to be prosecuted," McCaskill said.
Insys in a statement said it disagreed with "certain
characterizations" in McCaskill's report but agreed the "opioid
epidemic must be addressed."
In a Sept. 1 letter accompanying McCaskill's report, Insys CEO Saeed
Motahari said the company's former employees' "mistakes and
unacceptable actions" were not indicative of those currently working
for Insys.
"Over the past several years, Insys has actively taken the
appropriate steps to place ethical standards of conduct and patient
interests at the heart of our business decisions," he said.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; additional reporting by
Yashaswini Swamynathan; Editing by Leslie Adler and Andrew Hay)
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