FRONTLINE: Opioids, Inc.

Product Description

Pushing opioids. Bribing doctors. Making millions. In Opioids, Inc.,FRONTLINE and the Financial Timesinvestigate how the drug company InsysTherapeutics profited from a fentanyl-based painkiller up to 100 times stronger than morphine—and how some Wall Street investors looked the other way even as questions about the company’s practices mounted. A year in the making, Opioids, Inc.tells the inside story of how Insys profited from Subsys, a fast-acting fentanyl-based spray that’s been linked to hundreds of deaths. Tactics included targeting high-prescribing doctors and nurse practitioners known within the company as “whales,” misleading insurers, and holding contests for the sales team: the higher the prescription doses they got doctors to write, the larger the cash prize—despite the dangers to patients. But as the documentary traces in unprecedented detail, the scheme fell apart: With federal prosecutors using anti-racketeering laws designed to fight organized crime, Insys became the first pharmaceutical company to have its top executives sentenced to prison time in connection with the opioid crisis. Through the lens of one company’s spectacular rise and fall, “Opioids, Inc.” is a powerful look at the role pharmaceutical companies have played in fueling America’s epidemic of opioid addiction, how they and their stockholders have profited, and how they’re being held accountable.