Fentanyl Billionaire Comes Under Fire as Death Toll Mounts From Prescription Opioids - WSJ
▻http://www.wsj.com/articles/fentanyl-billionaire-comes-under-fire-as-death-toll-mounts-from-prescription-op
Before they were arrested last year, Alabama doctors John Couch and Xiulu Ruan were prized customers of Insys Therapeutics Inc., maker of a powerful and highly addictive type of synthetic opioid known as fentanyl.
Drs. Couch and Ruan prescribed a combined $4.9 million of the painkiller, called Subsys, to Medicare patients in 2013 and 2014, among the most of any doctors in the U.S., federal data show.
Insys, based in Chandler, Ariz., went to unusual lengths to keep these high-prescribing doctors happy. Insys Executive Chairman John N. Kapoor, the company’s billionaire co-founder, personally traveled to Mobile, Ala., to attend a business dinner with them, said people familiar with the matter. The doctors were also frequent speakers and consultants for Insys, which paid them $270,700 in combined fees over 21 months, according to government data.
