Ep. 218 – Pharmaceutical Company Adopts “Glengarry Glen Ross“ Sales Culture of Purdue Pharma

The author of Dreamland, Sam Quinones, stated in a blog post “The Purdue Pharma company instructional materials pushed salespeople to ‘expand the physician’s definition of the appropriate patient’ to which opioids might be prescribed, and to develop a ‘specific plan for systematically moving physicians to the next level of prescribing.’” Over the past twenty years, other companies have adopted the same deceptive, sales tactics from Purdue Pharma, including INSYS Therapeutics.  

Today Greg is joined by Evan Hughes, author and writer for GQ, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and The New York Times. Hughes recently composed an article for The New York Times entitled The Pain Hustlers. This article profiled the case of INSYS Therapeutics and how they paid millions to physicians through their “Speaker Program” to recommend and prescribe their bestselling, highly addictive, fentanyl product to treat terminal cancer pain: Subsys. Hear this story and how others in the industry have adopted these deceptive sales and marketing practices, despite Purdue Pharma’s prosecution for employing essentially, the same practices.