Arizona to get $13M of McKinsey’s settlement over role in opiod crisis

PHOENIX – Arizona will receive more than $13 million of a nearly $600 million settlement with a consulting firm over its work with pharmaceutical companies during the nation’s opioid epidemic.

Arizona, along with 46 other states, five U.S. territories and the District of Columbia, accused McKinsey & Company of profiting off the opioid crisis by helping drug companies, including OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, promote their addictive painkillers.

McKinsey agreed to a $573 million settlement, with $13,350,614.04 going to Arizona, according to a press release Thursday from the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. The deal is contingent upon court approval.

“Even though no amount of money can bring back the lives lost, I hope our settlement provides the funding needed for programs to help those battling opioid addiction,” Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said in the release.

“We will continue to hold individuals and corporations responsible for putting profits over the health of Arizonans.”

McKinsey also has reached separate deals with Washington and West Virginia, leaving Nevada as the only state without a settlement.

“We deeply regret that we did not adequately acknowledge the tragic consequences of the epidemic unfolding in our communities,” McKinsey Global Managing Partner Kevin Sneader said in a statement, noting the company cooperated with investigations. ”With this agreement, we hope to be part of the solution to the opioid crisis in the U.S.”

McKinsey’s role in the opioid crisis came into focus in recent months in legal documents that were made public as part of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma’s efforts to settle claims against it through bankruptcy court. They showed the company long worked with Purdue to boost sales even as the extent of the opioid epidemic became clear.

Some documents showed it was trying to “supercharge” flagging OxyContin sales in 2013. Its efforts over the years included encouraging Purdue sales representatives to focus on doctors who already prescribed high volumes of OxyContin and to try to move patients to more potent doses of the drug.

On a video call with journalists Thursday, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein said that McKinsey worked for Purdue for 15 years.

“McKinsey’s efforts worked. The number of pills prescribed, Purdue’s profits and McKinsey’s fees all skyrocketed,” said Stein, whose state stands to receive nearly $19 million in the settlement. “But so did the number of overdoses.”

Under the multistate deal, McKinsey agreed to make public all its communications with Purdue plus those dealing with the opioid businesses of the pharmaceutical companies Endo, Johnson & Johnson and Mallinckrodt.

The company, which announced two years ago that it would not advise clients on opioid-related businesses, said it has terminated two of its partners for communicating about deleting documents. It also said it will hire a new general counsel with a deep background in ethics and boost professional standards training for its employees.

Sneader, the McKinsey managing partner, said in a letter Thursday to the company’s employees that the company should use this settlement to address its practices in other areas, too.

“Today’s focus is on opioids,” he wrote, “but we have also faced other issues that have made clear the importance of improving how we act everywhere that we operate.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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