Earlier this year, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) launched an investigation into the role of America's drug makers in fueling the country's opioid crisis. Her first report, “Fueling an Epidemic: Insys Therapeutics and the Systemic Manipulation of Prior Authorization,” was released on September 6 and detailed how Insys “repeatedly employed aggressive and likely illegal techniques to boost prescriptions for its fentanyl product Subsys,” beginning around 2014.
Insys' shady business practices were no surprise to Roddy Boyd, who in late 2015 published the first in a series of stories about how doctors, insurance companies, and sales reps with no medical backgrounds pushed off-label Subsys prescriptions in exchange for cash, leading to at least 63 deaths.
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