Madison County State’s Attorney Tom Haine announced Friday that he filed a civil lawsuit against McKinsey & Company, a management consultancy, alleging civil conspiracy for its role in advising pharmaceutical manufacturers on the sales and marketing of opioids.
According to a press release, Madison County’s lawsuit against McKinsey & Company is the first of its kind in Illinois and among the first filed in the country.
“Madison County seeks to hold McKinsey accountable for its role in coldly wrecking so many lives through opioid over-prescription and addiction,” Haine stated. “McKinsey designed and implemented the strategies that lead to a ‘turbocharge’ of opioid prescriptions even at the height of the opioid epidemic. McKinsey’s partners working on opioid issues even suggested destroying evidence relating to its work. Now McKinsey needs to pay. It won’t bring people back or repair families, but it will be some measure of justice. And any funds recovered can then be put towards local drug mitigation programs and to combat the scourge of mental health that is so related to addiction in the first place.”
According to the complaint against McKinsey & Company, Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty with the Department of Justice for felony civil conspiracy in October 2020 for its role in marketing OxyContin after its 2007 guilty plea. Purdue’s co-conspirators are not named in the guilty plea, but the “covered conduct” that was the basis for Purdue’s criminal liability directly implicates McKinsey.
The guilty plea states that “Purdue, in collaboration with [McKinsey], implemented many of [McKinsey’s] recommendations.”
McKinsey’s work with Purdue began as early as 2003 and continued through at least November 2017. McKinsey allegedly developed and implemented strategies based on its own analytical methodology to maximize OxyContin sales. Purdue allegedly adopted these strategies, and McKinsey allegedly seconded employees to Purdue in order to implement them, the press release states.
McKinsey is accused of working alongside senior management and the sales and marketing team at Purdue. It is also accused of providing routine updates to Purdue’s board of directors.
At the height of the opioid epidemic in 2013, McKinsey allegedly proposed a strategy dubbed Project Turbocharge. Purdue adopted the strategy. Due to the deployment of McKinsey’s marketing strategy, OxyContin sales peaked that same year.
McKinsey allegedly took a “granular” approach to increasing OxyContin sales by identifying specific physicians who had already prescribed large amounts of opioids and then encouraging Purdue to “aggressively” target those prescribers with a sustained marketing blitz, which was conducted by Purdue’s “expanded and incentivized” sales representative force, the press release states.
The Journal of the American Medical Association published recent research indicating that the specific tactics McKinsey urged Purdue to adopt are associated with elevated opioid overdose mortality.
On July 4, 2018, the press release states that McKinsey’s key personnel working on the Purdue account realized it may face liability. McKinsey allegedly sent an office email reading, “Just saw in the [Financial Times] that Judy Lewent is being sued by states attorneys general for her role on the Purdue board. It probably makes sense to have a quick conversation with the risk committee to see if we should be doing anything other that (sic) eliminating all our documents and emails. Suspect not but as things get tougher there someone might turn to us.”
Haine appointed attorney Ann Callis, a partner at Holland Law Firm, to handle the litigation with a team of private lawyers.
“We made sure the taxpayers and citizens of Madison County got a great deal here,” Haine stated. “I don’t like frivolous litigation and outrageous attorney’s fees. Madison County has a bad history in that department. But, we are turning over a new leaf, and approaching litigation in a responsible way, negotiating hard on behalf of taxpayers. Here, not a dime will be paid by Madison County while this litigation proceeds. And Ann and her team have agreed to our proposed contingent fee arrangement, which is very low.
Haine also previously filed an opioid claim against Mallinckrodt plc, which has filed for bankruptcy. Callis is waiving compensation in that suit, according to a prior press release.
“Having seen the devastation of the opioid crisis in our community, I am honored to represent my home county in the Mallinckrodt Bankruptcy,” Callis previously stated. “I look forward to working with county officials on this important litigation.”