Purdue Pharma

Arely Flores

Business Ethics ll

South Texas College

Dr. Scott Sparrow

December 2, 2022
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I believe everything is fueled by doing what benefits us. This action can be referred to as

ethical egoism. Ethical egoism claims that an action should be performed if and only if, and

because, performing that action maximizes self-interest. In this essay we will examine the case of

Purdue Pharma, the company associated with the manufacturing and distribution of Oxycontin.

Purdue Pharma, was the manufacturer of OxyContin, a very aggressive opioid painkiller that led

to a major scandal in the news due to several overdose deaths from prescription opioids in the

US. People are now questioning the company's role in the epidemic and debating whether their

marketing tactics are to blame. Were the doctors who created the medication to blame or was it

the marketing agents who trained the sales representatives how to sell the product to blame. Or

were the actual sale agents that went to clinics, hospitals, etc to marketie the opioid to blame.

The following essay will discuss the causes of Purdue Pharma's aggressive marketing campaign

that led to the massive opioid crisis in America today.

A major factor contributing to the rise of the opioid crisis is the aggressive marketing

tactics used by Purdue Pharma to promote the use of opioids to treat chronic pain. By

successfully convincing doctors and the public that opioids were a safe alternative to other pain

medications, Purdue was able to significantly increase its sales and grow its market share in the

opioid market. As the demand for opioid medication grew, they had to find ways to keep up with

that demand. Over the years, Purdue has used a variety of marketing strategies to promote the

use of opioids. Some of the strategies that have been successful include sponsoring academic

conferences to educate the medical community of potential uses of opioids, partnering with

organizations that represent the interests of medical professionals to develop guidelines for

prescribing opioids, advertising aggressively in medical journals and industry publications as

well as, providing free samples of OxyContin to health care professionals to encourage
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prescribers to try the drug in patients. When combined with other factors, such as a lack of

regulations on painkiller prescribing and the widespread belief that opioids are a safe alternative

to other pain medications, these marketing efforts have had a significant influence on the growth

of the opioid crisis in the United States. Prior to the release of OxyContin, the industry had

historically marketed these drugs as less addictive than alternative treatment options.The trials

that were conducted found that OxyContin had a high success rate in the treatment of pain and an

acceptable safety profile. Based on these results, the drug was quickly approved for sale in the

US by the FDA.

The company soon realized that they had to find a way to promote and sell the drug to the

masses in order to generate more revenue. They found the solution to this problem in 1997 when

Purdue Pharma hired J. Michael Friedmann as its Vice President of Sales to oversee the

company's sales and marketing efforts. Friedmann's primary responsibility was to come up with

an effective strategy for promoting OxyContin to the physicians who were prescribing it and the

patients who needed it. One of the first steps that he took was to change the way that drug reps

were instructed to sell OxyContin to patients. In the past, drug reps were trained to only

recommend OxyContin to patients who met certain criteria for treatment. Another factor that

contributed to the spread of the opioid crisis was the widespread use of OxyContin by patients

and physicians across the United States. OxyContin was sold by Purdue as a safe alternative to

other opioid drugs for treating chronic pain, and physicians were increasingly encouraged to

prescribe this drug for the treatment as a way to increase profits for their medical practices. As a

result, many patients became addicted to OxyContin and used it as a means of coping with their

pain for many years. However, as the supply of OxyContin began to dry up in the early 2000s,
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many patients were forced to turn to heroin and other illegal sources of opioids in order to

maintain their supply of drugs.

To combat the problems associated with opioid addiction, the federal government has

implemented a number of programs aimed at educating the public about the dangers of opioid

use and preventing people from becoming addicted to these drugs. These programs include the

Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, which is designed to make it easier to track and monitor

all prescriptions for controlled substances in the state of Maryland. The program also enables

physicians and pharmacists to detect any patterns of abuse or addiction that may be developing

among their patients.

It is my belief that the Slackers family, owners and operators of Purdue Pharma, were

motivated by their own self-interest and found a way to profit off of their patients when other

forms of medication therapy were available. Their main goal was to make revenue and profit off

the sales and to keep the business running. I believe that there was a pyramid scheme happening

in order to make this drug as popular as it was. It starts with Purdue Pharma creating the drug,

then the marketing agents training others, and then the actual sales agents selling the product. If

we want to go further, we can even say that the doctors and nurses who prescribed the

medication were also “Eichmann”. Under the guise of helping people manage chronic pain, they

aggressively marketed the prescription drug to maximize their profit.

Everyone who was involved with spreading this medication was a moral egoist, trying to

act to maximize self-interest or in this case maximize profit. The marketing agents in this case

were solely acting on their own interests and ignored the repercussions that opioid users may

have faced. Due to them acting in their own self-interest the key ingredient to Purdue pharma's
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demise was that everyone was acting as though what they were doing was right. By neglecting to

realize the impact that marketing opioids as a safer alternative had on the American people, they

created a generation that would have to live with the repercussions associated with opioid

addiction.
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References

Keefe, P. R. (2017, October 23). The Family That Built an Empire of Pain. The New

Yorker. Retrieved December 2, 2022, from

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain

Macy, B. (n.d.). - THE ROLE OF PURDUE PHARMA AND THE SACKLER FAMILY IN

THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC. GovInfo. Retrieved December 2, 2022, from

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-116hhrg43010/html/CHRG-

116hhrg43010.htm

Van Zee, A. (n.d.). The Promotion and Marketing of OxyContin: Commercial Triumph,

Public Health Tragedy. NCBI. Retrieved December 2, 2022, from

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2622774/