How dare they try to take away the only thing that makes life tolerable for us?
This kind of narrow-minded thinking by people who can't or won't empathize with chronic pain sufferers really makes me angry. Until they have had to experience true suffering and hopelessness, they will never understand. Sadly, they don't even want to. :-(
-- Karen> >Karen, I wondered the same thing... Mostly the article seemed outraged >that the company could be making so much money off of the product. >Follow the logic here... A company makes a product which relieves >indescribable suffering in the people who need it. Because there are >heretofore unimagined numbers of people who are suffering, the company >relieved far more pain in far more people than they thought were out >there. And in the process they made about as much money as the total >salaries of a single major league baseball team. > >Yeah, just think about it... Purdue Pharma save 8 times more people >from the horrors of chronic pain than they expected, and they made >$400million per year over 5 years. The Atlanta Braves players played >baseball well and they made about the same amount of money. So, sure, >let's attack the pharmaceutical company... > >At Tue, 28 May 2002, Karen wrote: >> >>And your point is....what??? I have been taking Oxycontin for 3 years >>now, and would have NO quality of life without it. People can abuse >>anything, from food to sex to...Oxycontin! That doesn't mean that we ALL >>do. Please don't ruin it for chronic pain sufferers like myself who >>need help from overwhelming and unrelenting pain. >> >>Thank you. >> >>>Oxycontin: Painkiller's Sales Far Exceeded Levels Anticipated By Maker >>>
>>>>>>>----- Original Message ----- >>>From: Frank B. Fisher, M.D. To: Alex DeLuca ; allynbeth@aol.com ; Bary Meier ; Billy Hurwitz ; caauction@earthlink.net ; Carl HALL ; Charles Hixson ; Cheryl Gaul ; Don Link ; Dorothy Bryant ; Doug Thorburn ; Gary Delsohn ; Gary Greenberg ; Kim Bolander ; Kurtis Ming ; Mary Baluss ; Mike Fisher ; Pain Issues ; Rich Willner ; Robin Goodfellow ; roy higgins ; Shannon Sullivan ; Skip Baker ; Tod Mikuriya ; Tom Grace ; Pain + Chemical Dependency >>>Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2002 12:21 AM >>>Subject: Oxycontin: Painkiller's Sales Far Exceeded Levels Anticipated ByMaker >>> >>>Media Awareness Project >>> >>>US: Painkiller's Sales Far Exceeded Levels Anticipated By Maker >>> >>>URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n928/a05.html >>>Newshawk: chip >>>Pubdate: Thu, 16 May 2002 >>>Source: Wall Street Journal (US) >>>Copyright: 2002 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. >>>Contact: wsj.ltrs@wsj.com >>>Website: http://www.wsj.com/ >>>Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487 >>>Author: Chris Adams, Staff Reporter Of The Wall Street Journal >>>Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin) >>> >>>PAINKILLER'S SALES FAR EXCEEDED LEVELS ANTICIPATED BY MAKER >>>The maker of OxyContin had so underestimated the sales potential of the widely abused painkiller that in 2000 the drug generated revenue that was eight times more than projected, internal company documents show. >>>Over the first five years of marketing, OxyContin sales totaled nearly $2 billion, sharply higher than the company's initial forecast of about $350 million. The drug's popularity sent Purdue Pharma LP scrambling to expand production, marketing and its sales force. At the same time, other drug prospects for the closely held firm fell through, elevating OxyContin's importance to Purdue's future. >>>The company's sales projections and marketing assumptions were laid out in 1995 in an internal product launch plan as well as in documents filed with the Food and Drug Administration. Together, they provide a look at the nuts-and-bolts launch plans for a painkiller that became a unexpected boon for its maker -- as well as a persistent problem for drug abuse and law-enforcement officials nationwide. >>>Originally, the documents show, Purdue had hoped to direct its sales force of 350 to devote 70% of their primary sales calls to OxyContin immediately after the drug's introduction, and reduce that number to 40% in the fifth year. Today, however, about 80% of such sales calls are to sell OxyContin. In 2001, the drug provided about 80% of Purdue's net sales of $1.47 billion, according to documents and company officials. >>>Company officials say they hadn't counted on such a large and untapped market of people who live with chronic pain. Purdue acknowledges OxyContin has been abused in many parts of the country but says quantifying sales for illegitimate uses is impossible. It figures sales for illegitimate purposes are tiny, a spokesman says. >>>Last month, the Drug Enforcement Administration identified 464 overdoses in which they say it was likely that OxyContin either caused or contributed to the death; Purdue Pharma disputed parts of the DEA analysis, and said that in most of the cases it had reviewed abusers had died after taking other drugs alongside OxyContin. In several hundred other deaths, the DEA said OxyContin, or drugs with the same active ingredient, could have played a role, but other significant factors were involved or information was insufficient to make a determination. While the drug acts as a time-release painkiller, many abusers crush the pill and snort the powder for a heroin-like high. >>>Officials of Purdue Pharma, based in Stamford, Conn., say they were shocked when abusers began showing up in emergency rooms in poor, rural areas of Appalachia, where the black market for the drug burgeoned. While some users have been able to get OxyContin by shopping from doctor to doctor to find one willing to write a prescription, others have resorted to extreme measures such as breaking into pharmacies. >>>OxyContin abuse has dogged the company, which has been faulted by some for aggressively marketing the drug while failing to take such steps as singling out doctors who are heavy prescribers. The administrator of the DEA recently testified that OxyContin abuse was due, in part, "to aggressive marketing and promotion" of the drug . Purdue says that it is unrealistic to expect the company to flag particular doctors, and that local law-enforcement officials or state medical boards are in a better position to investigate questionable prescriptions. >>>Until December 1995 when OxyContin won FDA approval, Purdue was a little-known company with one main painkiller in its cabinet, MS Contin, a morphine-based drug that came with a social stigma and generated only $88.5 million in sales the year before. The market was wide open for an equally powerful, long-acting compound to treat pain. >>>Purdue had taken an existing morphine-like product, oxycodone, and applied time-release technology, allowing patients to take it just twice a day, rather than several. Developing the drug cost "in excess of $40 million," a company official stated in an affidavit on file at the FDA. >>>>From the beginning, Purdue said that "one of the major strategies in launching OxyContin will be to replace all prescriptions for MS Contin," according to the company's launch plan. >>>Armed with data on individual doctors' prescribing habits, Purdue divided physicians into groups and targeted those already high on the list for prescribing other painkillers. The launch plan details how many sales calls each of Purdue's representatives were supposed to make each week, and also how representatives were supposed to call on the hospital committees that decide on which drugs to use. The plan called for Purdue to use the "Speakers' Bureau" -- a stable of doctors, now numbering about 1,000 -- to give lectures during hospital programs about the benefits of OxyContin. >>>The plan describes common methods drug makers use to build support for a new drug , although most manufacturers are loath to disclose their tactics. One such tactic: Mailing doctors information on the new drug along with a reply card that can be sent back to the company if the doctor is interested in seeing the drug stocked at a local pharmacy. The company can then use the reply cards to encourage local pharmacies to stock the drug . > >-- >cathy :-) >