Motions to Dismiss Submitted by Sackler Family Members Named in Massachusetts Complaint

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Attorneys for current and former directors of Purdue Pharma, including members of the Drs. Mortimer and Raymond Sackler families, have submitted Motions to Dismiss the misleading complaint filed against them by the Massachusetts Attorney General. These new court filings explain, for the first time, why the sensationalized portrayal of their conduct is untrue and misleading.

The Motions to Dismiss detail the distortions and mischaracterizations that riddle the amended complaint which overlooks the proper role of a Board of Directors in corporate governance. It does not allege any action at all by some of the directors, let alone any wrongful conduct, but drags them into the litigation anyway. We are confident the court will look past the inflammatory media coverage generated by the misleading complaint and apply the law fairly by dismissing all of these claims.

The same documents cited in the complaint in fact demonstrate that the Board of Directors was repeatedly advised that Purdue was fully complying with all of its legal and compliance obligations. Yet the complaint omits this crucial information by selectively editing out every reference to the many assurances of legal compliance that appear throughout Purdue management’s reports to the Board.

The family members have great sympathy for those suffering from addiction and are fully committed to contributing to solutions to the nation's complex crisis of opioid abuse. According to U.S. government data, the rise in opioid-related deaths is driven overwhelmingly by heroin and illicit fentanyl smuggled by drug traffickers into the U.S. from China and Mexico.

The documents cited by the complaint actually disprove many of its claims and omit important facts such as:

• The Board did not respond to opioid abuse and the addiction crisis by trying to sell prescription opioids “harder” in 2018. In reality, a plan prepared by Purdue’s management (not the Board) proposed to substantially decrease calls to promote prescription opioids and showcased as the #1 product to be promoted a non-opioid medicine for constipation.
• No member of the Board ever proposed, drafted, or supported a proposal known as Project Tango. In reality, Project Tango was a potential joint venture proposed by a third-party private equity firm, and the Board rejected the proposal.
• No member of the Board of Directors ever asked Purdue to “fight back to convince doctors and patients to keep using the abuse deterrent formulation of OxyContin” in response to an insurance industry report -- and the report at issue explicitly recognized that the abuse deterrent formulation of OxyContin had averted thousands of cases of abuse.
• The complaint erroneously claims a Board member suggested that Purdue consider launching “yet another opioid.” In reality, he was proposing an abuse-deterrent formulation, which the FDA and Massachusetts have recognized is a valuable tool for reducing and preventing abuse.

The amended complaint’s consistent mischaracterizations are not just inaccuracies -- they create a fundamentally false narrative about a complex public health crisis that distracts attention from the important effort of finding effective solutions that save lives.

• The allegations ignore and dismiss the needs of pain patients. For many years, Purdue has produced critically important, FDA-approved medicines that doctors rely on for treating millions of patients suffering pain caused by illness or injury. Last month, over 300 medical experts called on the CDC to recognize that pain patients are being driven into the illegal opioid market by a failure to recognize their needs for these medicines.
• The allegations ignore Purdue’s industry-leading role in attempting to fight abuse and diversion and the importance of abuse-deterrent opioids in harmonizing the need to treat pain with the need to reduce occasions for abuse and addiction. Purdue, with the full support of its Board of Directors, has invested over $1 billion in initiatives designed to deter abuse and diversion, including the ground-breaking development of the first abuse-deterrent opioid. To this day, the FDA continues to publicly state that abuse-deterrent opioids are an important tool to reduce prescription opioid abuse. In 2013, the Massachusetts Attorney General, along with 41 other state attorneys general, commended the FDA for supporting abuse-deterrent formulations. In 2014, Massachusetts passed a law requiring insurers to cover them.

The amended complaint is inaccurate about all of the directors, and particularly portrays Dr. Richard Sackler in a false light, by mischaracterizing long-ago communications to imply wrongly that he is indifferent to the suffering of those struggling with addiction. Dr. Richard Sackler feels profound compassion for people dealing with addiction and has publicly stated that he was expressing the valid concern that pain patients retain access to necessary medications. He regrets that a long time ago he used this language, which is now purposefully distorted out of context from tens of millions of documents, and does not reflect his actual conduct. (A detailed refutation of the most egregiously misleading allegations against Dr. Richard Sackler is below.)

The family members remain committed to playing a meaningful role in developing solutions to this complex public health crisis and last week the Dr. Mortimer and Raymond Sackler families voluntarily contributed $75 million to support the first National Center for Addiction Studies and Treatment. We urge all involved, including the Massachusetts Attorney General, to set aside divisive litigation based on misleading allegations to collaborate in working together to find real solutions that save lives.

False Allegations Regarding Dr. Richard Sackler

• The complaint falsely claims that Dr. Sackler wrote "not too bad, could have been far worse” in response to a supposed report of 59 deaths. In reality, he was responding to the full text of a 2001 New York Times article titled “Cancer Painkillers are Being Abused” and nothing in his comment referred to deaths.
• The complaint fabricates claims that Dr. Sackler responded to “Time’s coverage of people who lost their lives to OxyContin” by sending a message to Purdue “staff” stating “deaths were the fault of the drug addicts.” In reality, his message contained no such statement — not even a reference to death — in the cited document, either in words or in substance.
• The complaint fabricates a claim that in a 1997 email Dr. Sackler supposedly “directed Purdue staff not to tell doctors the truth” — that “OxyContin is more potent than morphine” — “because the truth could reduce OxyContin sales.” In reality, the actual emails contain no such direction.
• The complaint includes false allegations that Dr. Sackler “instructed executives that OxyContin … enhanced personal performance, like Viagra.” In reality, the cited underlying 1998 email makes clear that Dr. Sackler was not instructing executives about anything or commenting on how OxyContin could be used.
• The complaint presents a misleading image of Dr. Sackler discussing a “blizzard of prescriptions” when OxyContin was launched, omitting the reality that he made these comments after arriving a day late for a meeting because of the historic blizzard of 1996.
• The complaint devotes three paragraphs to the inaccurate suggestion that Richard Sackler “went into the field to promote opioids to doctors alongside a sales rep” in 2011. In reality, that did not happen and Dr. Richard never went on sales calls to promote OxyContin.

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