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'In-Depth Narcotics Experience': McKinsey Advised US Pharmas on How to Turbo Sell Opioids_我的网站

A |     Global consulting giant McKinsey & Company advised several painkillers producers for 15 years on how to "turbocharge" prescription drug sales largely to blame for starting the opioid epidemic in the US, The New York Times has revealed citing over 100,000 documents.,The docs emerged as a part of a settlement deal that McKinsey signed with several state attorneys that sued the company.,Apart from working with Endo, Purdue, and Mallinckrodt, the company also provided "in-depth experience in narcotics" for Johnson & Johnson subsidiaries producing controlled substances. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of US citizens died from overdose, often linked to these very drugs.,How It All Started,According to the disclosed documents, McKinsey helped both Endo and Purdue, the creators of two of the most widespread opioid-based drugs for severe chronic pain, to launch their products Opana and OxyContin in 2006-2008. The firm even advised one of the companies on how to overcome a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) block which it had encountered in 2008.,The FDA blocked Purdue's attempt to release an upgraded version of its OxyContin, which was more difficult to snort or dilute and inject in bloodstream – two methods of the prescription drug's abuse that already had been devised by some of its recipients. In order to help Purdue get the license, McKinsey interviewed an ex-drug dealer on the medication's abuse, prepared docs and even coached the drug firm's officials for meetings with the FDA as the pharmaceutical company knew its drug had been widely abused, the docs suggest.,Crack Pipes: Biden Administration's Handling of US Opioid Crisis Raising Questions, Journo Says15 February, 13:00 GMT,Purdue's main competitor, Endo, also released a new version of its painkiller and tried to get it marked as resistant to crushing (for snorting) and diluting (for injections), but the FDA did not allow the latter citing lack of such properties. Nonetheless, the drug's release was a success and coincided with a drop in abuse-resistant OxyContin's sales.,This came, however, at a cost of local epidemics of previously unseen blood disorders in several US states in 2012 – patients were found to be anemic and suffered from kidney failure. Many of them admitted to abusing updated Opana – the new formulae indeed discouraged from snorting it, but still allowed injection abuse. However, the same component that prevented crushing took a great toll on those who tried to inject the drug to get a better high, leading to red blood cells' destruction and organ damage.,Going on the 'Offensive',The consulting company's involvement in the opioid crisis did not stop at helping the companies to launch their products – it also helped them to boost the sales.,While the pills like the ones produced by Endo, Purdue and Mallinckrodt were originally advertised as not causing additions, US doctors were not always prone to prescribing them, especially when a patient's pain was neither severe nor chronic. According to the revealed documents, McKinsey's consultants helped Purdue, and several other companies, including two J&J subsidiaries, to overcome this "problem".,Starting in 2009, McKinsey developed a "segmentation" strategy for Purdue: its analysts divided the company's customers into groups based on their potential thoughts of the product and then formed distinct messages for each group. The customers in this case were doctors prescribing painkillers and the product was opioid drugs. The strategy targeted even doctors who resorted to opioids only in most extreme cases, ensuring them of OxyContin's safety and trying to convince them that there was no point in making their patients suffer.,The consulting company proposed to achieve this by "[raising] physician comfort levels through appropriate education and support". Purdue tried to convince these doctors that their colleagues had no issues prescribing OxyContin.,By 2014, the US government started to realize a nascent opioid drug problem was underway and introduced new labeling requirements for such drugs as well as instructions to use them only in cases of severe of chronic pain. Around the same time, OxyContin sales started to decline, prompting Purdue to ask for McKinsey's help once again – this time to overcome the government's policy and precautions.,The consultants identified the problem as the company promoting its drug as a less potent opioid amid rampant drug abuse and advised to shift to the "offense" instead, the documents show. They namely advised focusing the salesmen efforts on doctors, who were likely to prescribe OxyContin to a new client not previously taking opioid drugs.,"Physicians with higher OxyContin NBRx to Rx ratio may be more likely to initiate a patient on OxyContin", an extract from a McKinsey presentation for Purdue from January 2014 said.,Around the same time and amid the 2015 HIV concentrated outbreaks in several states linked to the opioid drugs abuse via injections, McKinsey consulted Endo on promoting its Opana. The company was not concerned about what the CDC named "explosive transmission" of HIV and the Opana's role in it, according to the documents. On the contrary, in summer 2015, it helped Endo rededicate most of its salesmen from other products into a "Sales Force Blitz" – the company almost solely dedicated to selling Opana to around 3,000 physicians in the US.,One of McKinsey's consultants was excited over the creation of the "Force", claiming in correspondence with the head of Endo’s painkiller unit that the "fun [begins] on Monday!" with the latter responding "agreed, the fun is just beginning".,Playing Both Sides,One of the strangest revelations in the documents uncovered by the New York Times is that McKinsey managed to play both sides of the opioid crisis tragedy – helping pharmaceutical companies sell more of "not-so-addiction-resistant" drugs, while also assisting the FDA, other government agencies and state governments, in the fight against the epidemic.,In 2017, the FDA finally decided to pull one of the drugs, the more potent Opana, from the market, but not until it made $844 million in revenue with help from McKinsey and played a role in the deaths of thousands of Americans, considered to be the victims of the opioid epidemic. Paradoxically, the same year, McKinsey Senior Partner Tom Latkovic lamented about doctors prescribing opioid painkillers left and right at a health care conference.,"Why do we continue to prescribe, dispense, pay for opioid prescriptions to people that we know, or at least we could know, have an incredibly high propensity to abuse them?" Latkovic wondered.,The bizarre divergence between what McKinsey was advising to the pharmaceutical companies and Latkovic's rhetoric is explained by the fact that he was not a member of the consulting company's pharmaceutical practice, which worked with pharma.,Instead, he and his team worked with state governments and health systems to pin down the ways of tackling the opioid crisis, The New York Times said citing two local officials, who used to work on the issue. Their work, however, was partly complicated by McKinsey's pharmaceutical wing, which wanted to greenlight their draft publications in case they could damage their clients.,North Carolina Rep. Claims Opioid Crisis 'Affects Every Community' in US Amid Drug Trafficking Surge19 December 2021, 01:36 GMT,Eventually in 2019, McKinsey finally stopped advising its top client, Perdue, but not until their ties became public during one of the litigations related to the opioid epidemic and initiated by US authorities. One such litigation eventually had McKinsey pay $600 million in settlement without admitting guilt, as well as release the documents related to its work with the pharmaceutical companies.。    这是一篇由 Ryan McCaffrey 撰写的评论文章，他曾在 2002-2012 年（初代 Xbox 和 Xbox 360 时代）任职于《官方 Xbox 杂志》，随后加入媒体行业并一直担任“Xbox 专家”。在 Xbox 25 周年庆典即将来临之际，他将分享他在该平台首个四分之一世纪里的回忆。任何年纪大到记得 Xbox 360 早期时光——即 2007 年 11 月 Mass Effect 最终发售之前那段日子的人，都会记得 BioWare 这部史诗级的太空歌剧并非横空出世。它曾备受期待并被大肆宣传……而我正是原因之一。当时我在《官方 Xbox 杂志》工作，说我们对这款 RPG 感到兴奋简直是保守了。这可是件惊天动地的大事。当时的 BioWare 正处于巅峰期，而微软与他们签下了独占协议。星球大战：旧共和国武士™™II：西斯领主™ 和 翡翠帝国™：特别版 已经作为 Xbox 独占游戏发布，随后该工作室在被 EA 收购并成为多平台开发商之前，又创作了前两部作为 360 独占游戏的 Mass Effect 作品。

B | 用棒球术语来说，这就像亚利桑那响尾蛇队作为一支羽翼未丰的扩张球队，在 1999 年签下了兰迪·强森，然后看着他连续赢得四次赛扬奖和一次世界大赛冠军。

C | 随着那四款独占游戏进程过半，BioWare 开始在 Mass Effect 上许下宏伟承诺。它预告了一个三部曲，你的故事选择和进度将从一代延续到下一代，并最终影响整个故事的结局。不仅如此，Mass Effect 还将包含对比 BioWare 之前作品的重大技术升级，利用惊人的虚幻引擎 3 来驱动其世界和角色。我没能在杂志上评测 Mass Effect —— 2007 年秋季的 Xbox 360 平台可以说是游戏史上最伟大的三个月，这意味着杂志社的每个人都忙得不可开交（我被指派去评测 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare）。评测的荣誉交给了我的同事 Paul Curthoys，他给出了实至名归的 10 分满分 —— 这与媒体当时给出的 9.4 分评价高度一致。我知道大多数人认为 质量效应 2 是系列最佳，但我一直是一代的捍卫者。

D | 虽然是的，它的战斗确实比续作带来的更精炼的第三人称射击体验要笨拙一些，但对我来说，初代的故事水平远超后续任何作品。薛帕德成为“幽灵”的旅程。第一次见到诸如雷克斯和盖拉斯等经典队友，并通过你的选择与他们建立关系（我百分之百选了阿什丽而不是凯登，你呢？）。

E | 探索宏伟的神堡，它本应是银河系中来自各地的外星种族聚集的庞大枢纽 —— Mass Effect 成功地让我相信了这一点，而在 质量效应 2 中，神堡被缩减成了只有两层的小走廊。还记得艾科族吗？还记得你可以承接的所有支线任务吗？神堡是奇妙的，而它甚至还不是我 Mass Effect 冒险中最令人难忘的事情。

F | 那是剧情反转。没错，BioWare 又一次惊艳了我！我喜欢故事的走向，萨伦是个伟大的反派。

G | 确实，在 Xbox 360 上帧率很难达到 30fps，电梯时间也长得离谱，但 Mass Effect 的玩法、故事、世界和角色是如此出色，以至于其技术局限性根本无关紧要。它确实就是 BioWare 承诺的那部太空歌剧。这显然是上一代 Xbox 无法实现的。它真的令人惊叹，并带给了我们一段长达四年多的旅程（Mass Effect 3 于 2012 年 3 月发售并终结了薛帕德的故事），这与我们以前在游戏中经历过的任何体验都不同。那些当时在场的人可能还记得第一次接触 Mass Effect 时的美妙瞬间，我希望新一代玩家有机会在尚未定名的 Mass Effect 5 中体验到类似的版本 —— 尽管我怀疑 EA 的新投资方是否会让 BioWare 完成一款后期变现极少的单机游戏，尤其是在它已经开发了这么久之后。我希望我是错的。但即使新的 Mass Effect 永远无法问世，我也对初代心存感激。它无疑是史上最优秀、最重要的 Xbox 独占游戏之一。无论当年微软为 BioWare 的独占权支付了多少费用，每一分钱都花得值。

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