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A pharmaceutical company founder accused of paying doctors millions in bribes to prescribe a highly addictive fentanyl spray was convicted Thursday in a case that exposed such marketing tactics as using a stripper-turned-sales-rep to give a physician a lap dance. John Kapoor, the 76-year-old former chairman of Insys Therapeutics, was found guilty of racketeering conspiracy after 15 days of jury deliberations. Four ex-employees of the Chandler, Arizona-based company, including the former exotic dancer, were also convicted. (Richer, 5/2)

Kapoor's 2017 arrest came on the same day U.S. President Donald Trump declared the epidemic that has caused tens of thousands of overdose deaths annually a public health emergency. Kapoor, 76, was found guilty of running a wide-ranging scheme to bribe doctors nationwide by retaining them to act as speakers at sham events at restaurants ostensibly meant to educate clinicians about its fentanyl spray, Subsys. (5/2)

During the 10-week trial, federal prosecutors had detailed Insys’s audacious marketing plan — which included paying doctors for sham educational talks and luring others with lap dances — to spur sales of Subsys, an under-the-tongue spray approved to treat patients with cancer. Company executives were accused of paying doctors to write prescriptions for a much wider pool of patients than the drug was approved for, and of misleading insurance companies so they would cover the potent and pricey medication. With the drug’s sales soaring, Insys became a darling of Wall Street, generating annual sales at one point of more than $300 million. (Emanuel and Thomas, 5/2)

“Today’s convictions mark the first successful prosecution of top pharmaceutical executives for crimes related to the illicit marketing and prescribing of opioids,” said Andrew E. Lelling, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, whose office prosecuted the case. “Just as we would street-level drug dealers, we will hold pharmaceutical executives responsible for fueling the opioid epidemic.” (Walker, 5/2)

Subsys followed a well-trod playbook for powerful opioids. It packaged the pain drug fentanyl, roughly 80 times more potent than morphine, in a mouth spray. It’s like Binaca, but sprayed under the tongue instead of into the throat. The spray allows fentanyl to rapidly be absorbed into the bloodstream, which is important for patients with cancer who have what is known as breakthrough pain: their pain breaks through the high doses of opioids they are already taking. (Herper, 5/2)

Prosecutors -- including Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Wyshak, who made his name targeting organized-crime figures in Boston -- methodically built their case over the years, bringing their first charges in 2015 against lower-level executives before charging Kapoor in 2017. The defense painted the government’s witnesses as the real villains, saying it was Burlakoff who came up with the idea of shoveling money to doctors while keeping that information away from Kapoor. (Lawrence, Griffin and Feeley, 5/2)

Calling 39 witnesses, federal prosecutors argued that Kapoor was motivated by money and willing to put patients' lives at stake to improve his bottom line. They depicted Insys Therapeutics as a struggling company under intense pressure from Kapoor to succeed. Prosecutors outlined a two-step approach that Insys followed to boost sales of its opioid painkiller, Subsys: first, bribe doctors and, then, lie to insurance companies. (Emanuel, 5/2)

Selling drugs is a relationship business. It’s best to do it in person. That is why, on a summer evening in 2012, Alec Burlakoff was out for dinner with Steven Chun, the owner of Sarasota Pain Associates. Burlakoff was a sales manager for Insys Therapeutics, an Arizona-based pharmaceutical company with only one branded product, a new and highly potent opioid painkiller called Subsys. Chun was a doctor who prescribed a lot of opioids. (Hughes, 5/2)