|
 John Kapoor, who served as the Arizona-based drugmaker's chairman,
and his co-defendants are the first executives of a painkiller
manufacturer to face trial for conduct that authorities say was tied
to the deadly opioid crisis.
Prosecutors say Kapoor oversaw a wide-ranging scheme to bribe
doctors nationwide by retaining them to act as speakers at
poorly-attended sham events at restaurants ostensibly meant to
educate clinicians about its fentanyl spray, Subsys.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has only approved Subsys for
use in treating severe pain in cancer patients. Yet prosecutors says
doctors who took bribes often prescribed Subsys to patients without
cancer, helping boost sales at Insys.
Prosecutors said Kapoor also sought to defraud insurers into paying
for Subsys. He is alleged to have had help from 2012 to 2015 from
his co-defendants, former Insys executives and managers Michael
Gurry, Richard Simon, Sunrise Lee and Joseph Rowan.
All five have pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy. Lawyers
for Kapoor acknowledge that Insys paid doctors but contend that he
believed they really were being paid to talk up the product's
benefits.
Beth Wilkinson, Kapoor's lead attorney, told jurors at the trial's
start in January that he had no idea about any "side deals" that
were being cut with doctors.
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Kapoor's 2017 arrest came the same day U.S. President Donald Trump
declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency. In 2017, a
record 47,600 people died of opioid-related overdoses, according to
the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Two top former executives - Michael Babich, Insys' chief executive
from 2011 to 2015, and Alec Burlakoff, its ex-vice president of
sales - testified against Kapoor after pleading guilty to carrying
out the scheme at his direction.
Babich, who joined Insys in 2007 after helping manage investments
for Kapoor at the pharmaceutical industry veteran's family office,
told jurors Kapoor wanted a "return on investment" from paying
doctors to act as speakers.
Much of the trial's testimony focused on how Insys marketed Subsys
to doctors. One witness testified that Lee, a former stripper who
became a regional sales director, gave a doctor a lap dance at a
Chicago club one time while promoting Subsys.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Tom Brown)
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