John Henry’s fledgling medical news organization, The Boston Globe Life Sciences Media, LLC d/b/a STAT, HQ’d in Boston is taking on Pursue Pharma to try to obtain thousands of documents sealed by court order, including a deposition of Dr. Richard Sackler, a Purdue board member and former company president.
In a STAT article released today, it was revealed that STAT is asking a Kentucky court to unseal documents which could provide information on how the company marked the pain pill OxyContin including what the top execs knew about how addictive it was.
Purdue has been the defendant in many state and federal lawsuits concerning its marketing of the drug, which some assert is a cause of the national opioid abuse crisis. STAT’s motion to unseal is included in today’s article and argues that under law, the public has the right of access to the documents sought and that they were improperly sealed in the first place. As part of a settlement with the State of Kentucky, Purdue paid $24 million but the state agreed to completely destroy or return all of the records produced by the company in the litigation.
This is an important effort and a worthwhile story to read.
Jeffrey Newman represents whistleblowers.
