【中美创新时报2024 年 12 月 14 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）联邦当局周五表示，咨询巨头麦肯锡公司将支付 6.5 亿美元，以解决其如何帮助普渡制药“加速”奥施康定销售的刑事和民事调查，普渡制药现已倒闭，被广泛指责助长了阿片类药物危机。《波士顿环球报》记者Nick Stoico 和 Travis Andersen对此作了下述报道。
当局称，麦肯锡前高级合伙人马丁·埃林也同意承认妨碍司法公正罪，因为他删除了与该公司与普渡大学合作有关的文件。埃林现年 60 岁，是美国公民，目前居住在泰国曼谷，他将面临最高 20 年监禁、三年缓刑和最高 25 万美元罚款。检察官表示，他将于稍后在弗吉尼亚州联邦法院接受宣判，指控就是在弗吉尼亚州提起的。
这家全球咨询公司与司法部达成的协议要求该公司停止任何与管制物质有关的工作五年，并实施新政策以评估高风险客户。
联邦当局表示，这项和解标志着管理咨询公司首次因建议客户违法而被追究刑事责任。该协议是在马萨诸塞州和弗吉尼亚州西区美国检察官领导的对麦肯锡与普渡大学交易的调查之后达成的。
“首先，从根本上讲，这是一个关于真人的案件，”马萨诸塞州联邦检察官 Joshua S. Levy 在波士顿的一次简报会上说。“这是一个关于过去许多年来成千上万因阿片类药物成瘾而丧生的人的案件。”
Levy 表示，这项和解代表着联邦政府在应对阿片类药物危机方面“又迈出了一步”，这场危机已经肆虐了全国各地的社区，并已造成数十万人死亡。上个月，美国疾病控制与预防中心表示，自 2020 年以来，美国目前正处于首次因过量服用而死亡人数不足 10 万人的阶段。
联邦检察官在协议中写道，普渡在 15 年内向麦肯锡支付了超过 9300 万美元，用于购买多种产品，包括如何在明知“强效且容易上瘾的阿片类药物”存在“相关风险和危险”的情况下提高奥施康定的销量。
莱维表示，其他管理咨询公司“应该注意到这一史无前例的解决方案”。
麦肯锡是一家总部位于纽约的国际咨询公司，在包括波士顿在内的 65 个国家和 135 个城市设有办事处，为世界各地的私营公司和政府机构提供咨询服务。
麦肯锡在一份声明中表示，“对我们过去为普渡制药提供的客户服务以及一位前合伙人删除与他为该客户工作相关的文件的行为深表歉意。”
该公司表示：“我们应该意识到阿片类药物对社会造成的危害，我们不应该为普渡制药从事销售和营销工作。”“这场可怕的公共卫生危机以及我们过去为阿片类药物制造商所做的工作将永远是我们公司深感遗憾的根源。”
弗吉尼亚州西区美国检察官克里斯托弗·R·卡瓦诺 (Christopher R. Kavanaugh) 表示，在强效止痛药奥施康定的成瘾性广为人知后，医生们不再愿意开这种药，因此普渡制药聘请了麦肯锡。
卡瓦诺表示，麦肯锡和普渡大学制定了一项计划，通过多种方式提高该药物的销量，包括针对“高价值处方者”，包括那些出于“医学上不必要的”原因开具止痛药的人。
“这不仅仅是假设，”卡瓦诺说。“这不仅仅是营销。这是一个策略。它被执行了，而且奏效了。麦肯锡的策略导致奥施康定的处方不安全、医学上不必要的、缺乏合法用途，而且经常被转移。”
检察官表示，麦肯锡在 2009 年为普渡大学准备了一份机密备忘录，建议其“首要任务”应该是“推动更具影响力的奥施康定特许经营权”。
致力于解决阿片类药物危机的人们欢迎这一和解。致力于结束危机和支持吸毒成瘾者的非营利组织 RIZE Massachusetts 的首席执行官朱莉·伯恩斯 (Julie Burns) 表示，与麦肯锡的和解凸显了“咨询行业令人不安的文化，利润往往优先于道德。”
“尽管意识到其中的风险，但这些顾问仍协助一家有问题的阿片类药物公司从事更糟糕的行为——这是对人命的公然漠视，”伯恩斯在一份声明中表示。
马尔伯勒居民、Team Sharing 创始人 Cheryl Juaire 是马萨诸塞州因吸毒和过量服用而失去孩子的父母的支持小组，她在周五的短信中表示，麦肯锡“助长了阿片类药物危机”，并“在我们的孩子死去的时候让萨克勒家族变得非常富有”。
“虽然这些钱无法让他们起死回生，但最终所有导致他们死亡的关键人物都得到了正义，”因过量服用而失去两个儿子的朱艾尔说。
官员们表示，除了罚款外，麦肯锡还必须实施改革，以加强其对服务合同相关法律和道德协议的遵守。
“今天的和解提醒我们，如果你利用危机，将利润置于患者安全之上，然后试图阻挠联邦调查，你将付出沉重的代价，”联邦调查局波士顿办事处负责人乔迪·科恩说。
麦肯锡于 2021 年 2 月与 47 个州达成了一项单独的 5.73 亿美元和解协议，此前该公司被指控在阿片类药物大流行期间帮助普渡大学“加速”销售。
2018 年，马萨诸塞州是第一个对普渡公司及其所有者萨克勒家族成员提起诉讼的州，当时州长莫拉·希利 (Maura Healey) 担任该州总检察长。
周五，希利表示，她“非常高兴看到美国司法部追究 [麦肯锡] 的责任”。
“希望这能给马萨诸塞州众多与毒瘾作斗争、因阿片类药物危机失去亲人的家庭和人们带来一丝安慰，”她说。
根据协议，麦肯锡同意支付 2.31 亿美元的罚款，并没收超过 9300 万美元，并向弗吉尼亚州医疗补助欺诈控制部门支付 200 万美元，以解决刑事指控。
该公司还将支付超过 3.23 亿美元，以解决其根据《虚假索赔法》承担的责任，即涉嫌向普渡大学提供建议，“导致其向联邦医疗保健计划提交虚假和欺诈性索赔，要求开具医学上不必要的 OxyContin 处方”。这笔付款还解决了麦肯锡在为 FDA 和普渡大学工作时未向美国食品和药物管理局披露利益冲突的指控。
莱维表示，麦肯锡支付的资金将用于“各种地方”，包括为犯罪受害者设立的基金，以及用于执法部门的进一步调查。
根据协议，该公司还将没收从普渡大学获得的所有费用，随着全国范围内民事和刑事调查的激增，普渡大学破产了。
该公司表示，该咨询公司还将维持一个增强的合规计划，以防止和发现违法行为，并避免从事任何涉及管制物质的工作，以及其他规定。
题图：周五，在波士顿莫克利联邦法院举行的新闻发布会上，美国弗吉尼亚州西区检察官克里斯托弗·R·卡瓦诺 (Christopher R. Kavanaugh) 宣布麦肯锡公司同意支付 6.5 亿美元帮助普渡制药提高阿片类药物销量。Charles Krupa/美联社
附原英文报道：
McKinsey to pay $650 million for conduct related to Purdue Pharma, opioid crisis
By Nick Stoico and Travis Andersen Globe Staff,Updated December 13, 2024
Christopher R. Kavanaugh, the US attorney for the Western District of Virginia, gestured while announcing that the McKinsey & Company agreed to pay $650 million for helping Purdue Pharma boost opioid sales, during a news conference at the Moakley Federal Courthouse on Friday in Boston.Charles Krupa/Associated Press
The consulting giant McKinsey & Company will pay $650 million to settle criminal and civil probes of how it helped “turbocharge” sales of OxyContin for Purdue Pharma, the now-defunct company widely blamed for helping fuel the opioid crisis, federal authorities said Friday.
A former McKinsey senior partner, Martin Elling, also agreed to plead guilty to obstruction of justice for deleting documents related to the company’s work with Purdue, authorities said. Elling, 60, a US citizen who currently lives in Bangkok, Thailand, faces up to 20 years in prison, three years probation, and a fine of up to $250,000. He will be sentenced at a later date in federal court in Virginia, where the charge was filed, prosecutors said.
The global consulting firm’s deal with the Department of Justice requires the company to cease any work relating to controlled substances for five years and implement new policies to assess high-risk clients.
Federal authorities said the settlement marks the first time a management consulting firm has been held criminally responsible for advising a client to break the law. The agreement follows an investigation into McKinsey’s dealings with Purdue that was led by the US attorneys from Massachusetts and the Western District of Virginia.
“First and foremost, at bottom, this is a case about real people,” Joshua S. Levy, the US attorney for Massachusetts, said during a briefing in Boston.. “This is a case about the thousands and thousands of people who’ve lost their lives to opioid addiction over the last many years.”
Levy said the settlement represents “one further step” in the federal government’s push to combat the opioid crisis that has ravaged communities across the nation and has killed hundreds of thousands of people. Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the US is currently on pace for its first year with fewer than 100,000 overdose deaths since 2020.
Purdue paid McKinsey more than $93 million over 15 years for several products, including how to drive more sales of OxyContin despite knowing “the risks and dangers associated” with the “powerful and addictive opioid,” federal prosecutors wrote in the agreement.
Levy said other management consulting firms “should take note of this first-of-its-kind resolution.”
McKinsey is an international consulting firm based in New York with offices in more than 65 countries and 135 cities, including Boston, that has advised both private companies and government agencies around the world.
In a statement, McKinsey said it was “deeply sorry for our past client service to Purdue Pharma and the actions of a former partner who deleted documents related to his work for that client.”
“We should have appreciated the harm opioids were causing in our society and we should not have undertaken sales and marketing work for Purdue Pharma,” the company said. “This terrible public health crisis and our past work for opioid manufacturers will always be a source of profound regret for our firm.”
Christopher R. Kavanaugh, US attorney for the Western District of Virginia, said Purdue engaged McKinsey after doctors became reluctant to prescribe OxyContin once the powerful painkiller’s addictive properties became widely known.
Kavanaugh said McKinsey and Purdue developed a plan to boost sales of the drug by methods including targeting “high-value prescribers,” including those who prescribed the painkiller for “medically unnecessary” reasons.
“This was not just hypothetical,” Kavanaugh said. “This was not just marketing. It was a strategy. It was executed and it worked. McKinsey’s strategy resulted in prescriptions for OxyContin that were unsafe, medically unnecessary, and lacked a legitimate purpose and were often diverted.”
Prosecutors said McKinsey prepared a confidential memo for Purdue in 2009 recommending its “top priority” should be “driving a more impactful OxyContin franchise.”
Those who work to address the opioid crisis welcomed the settlement. Julie Burns, chief executive of RIZE Massachusetts, a nonprofit focused on ending the crisis and supporting people suffering from addiction, said the settlement with McKinsey highlights “a troubling culture within the consulting industry, where profit often takes precedence over ethics.”
“The consultants assisted a problematic opioid drug company in engaging in even worse practices despite being aware of the risks involved — exemplifying a blatant disregard for human life,” Burns said in a statement.
Cheryl Juaire, a Marlborough resident and founder of Team Sharing, a support group of Massachusetts parents who have lost children to drug addiction and overdoses, said in a text message Friday that McKinsey “helped fuel the opioid crisis” and made the “Sackler family incredibly wealthy while our children were dying.”
“Although that money won’t bring them back, justice is finally being served to all the key players that contributed to their deaths,” said Juaire, who lost two sons to fatal overdoses.
In addition to the monetary fine, McKinsey must implement reforms to strengthen its compliance with legal and ethical protocols related to its service contracts, officials said.
“Today’s settlement is a reminder that if you capitalize on a crisis by putting profits over patient safety and then try to obstruct a federal investigation, you will pay a hefty price,” said Jodi Cohen, special agent in charge of the FBI Boston office.
McKinsey reached a separate $573 million settlement with 47 states in February 2021, after it was accused of helping “turbocharge” sales for Purdue during the opioid pandemic.
In 2018, Massachusetts was the first state to file a lawsuit against Purdue, as well as individual members of the Sackler family, the company’s owners, when Governor Maura Healey was the state’s attorney general.
On Friday, Healey said she was “really glad to see the United States Department of Justice hold [McKinsey] accountable.”
“Hopefully it gives one additional measure of comfort to so many families and people across Massachusetts who are struggling with addiction, who have lost loved ones to the opioid crisis,” she said.
Under the deal, McKinsey has agreed to pay a $231 million penalty plus a forfeiture of more than $93 million and a payment of $2 million to the Virginia Medicaid Fraud Control Unit to resolve the criminal allegations.
The company will also pay more than $323 million to resolve its liability under the False Claims Act for allegedly providing advice to Purdue “that caused the submission of false and fraudulent claims to federal healthcare programs for medically unnecessary prescriptions of OxyContin.” The payment also resolves allegations that McKinsey failed to disclose a conflict of interest to the US Food and Drug Administration when it was working for both the FDA and Purdue.
Levy said the money paid by McKinsey will go to “a variety of places,” including funds set up for crime victims, as well as to law enforcement for further investigations.
Under the agreement, the firm will also forfeit all fees received from Purdue, which went into bankruptcy as the surge of civil and criminal investigations began to mount around the country.
The consulting firm will also maintain an enhanced compliance program to prevent and detect legal violations and refrain from any work involving controlled substances, among other stipulations, the company said.
