Five current and former executives with pharmaceutical distributors that are accused of flooding small U.S. towns with prescription painkillers are scheduled to testify before Congress on Tuesday, a hearing that could be a defining moment for the opioid industry.
Executives from McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, Miami-Luken and H.D. Smith wholesale drug company are to appear before a House Energy and Commerce Committee oversight panel. They are expected to face tough questions under oath about why their companies pumped millions of opioid pills into specific communities, paving the way for the deadliest drug crisis in U.S. history.
Cardinal’s executive chairman, George Barrett, said in written testimony released Monday that he is sorry that the company did not do more to stop the shipment of powerful prescription painkillers — oxycodone and hydrocodone — to two small pharmacies in rural West Virginia.
“With the benefit of hindsight, I wish we had moved faster and asked a different set of questions,” Barrett said. “I am deeply sorry we did not. Today, I am confident we would reach different conclusions about those two pharmacies.”
In February, the panel revealed in letters sent to the firms that McKesson and Cardinal Health shipped 12.3 million doses of powerful prescription opioids to the Family Discount Pharmacy in Mount Gay-Shamrock, West Virginia, from 2006 to 2014. The panel also is probing deliveries Cardinal made to the Hurley Drug Company in Williamson, West Virginia, which received more than 10.5 million pills during that same time period.
Cardinal said it has not distributed hydrocodone or oxycodone to the pharmacy in Mount Gay-Shamrock since 2012 and has not sent the drugs to Williamson since 2014.
McKesson CEO John Hammergren said the company distributed about 151 million doses of oxycodone and hydrocodone in West Virginia between 2007 and 2012, a fraction of the nearly 2 billion doses of all prescription medicines McKesson distributed in the state during that time frame.
“Put another way, West Virginia pharmacies overall were, and continue to be, very high volume customers for prescription drugs generally,” he said.
The subcommittee has spent the past year investigating the sale of pills in West Virginia by wholesale drug distributors, which are required by law to submit suspicious orders to the Drug Enforcement Administration. If the orders and sales are not correctly reported, it can facilitate the diversion of the drugs to the black market, where they are often sold at a premium, fueling addiction.
“We need to hear directly from those in charge,” Rep. Gregg Harper, R-Miss., chairman of the panel’s subcommittee on oversight and investigations, said in a video statement. “Through their testimony, we hope to gain a more complete picture of the crisis that unfolded in West Virginia and across our nation.”
Each executive in written statements said their companies have taken steps to prevent the diversion of drugs and to help fight the opioid crisis. They argued that their companies do not manufacture or prescribe drugs; they fulfill orders from pharmacies. Distributors, they argue, are not responsible for overprescribing medications. The companies also say that opioid painkillers account for a small portion of their overall business.
“As an intermediary in the pharmaceutical supply chain, Cardinal Health does not ultimately control either the supply of or the demand for opioids,” Barrett said.
Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen and McKesson Corp. are the nation’s three biggest pharmaceutical distributors, responsible for shipping nearly 85 percent of all prescription drugs in the United States. McKesson is the fifth-largest company in the country, with revenue of more than $192 billion, according to the Fortune 500 list. Cardinal ranked 15th, with $121 billion in revenue.
Committee members are hoping Tuesday’s hearing might shed light on data the companies reported to the DEA about pill orders. That information is kept in a confidential DEA database known as the Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System. The database tracks the flow of prescription painkillers from manufacturers to distributors to pharmacies.
Cardinal Health was fined $44 million in 2016 to resolve allegations that it failed to report suspicious orders of narcotics. In 2008, Cardinal paid a $34 million fine to settle similar allegations.
McKesson agreed to pay $150 million in fines in January to resolve allegations that it failed to report suspicious orders of narcotics. In 2008, the company paid a $13 million fine for similar allegations.
Many distributors also are named as plaintiffs in a number of lawsuits that municipalities have filed in an attempt to recoup damages the opioid crisis has caused. Most of the cases are consolidated in a massive legal case in Cleveland.
The companies also have come under fresh scrutiny from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who said in an interview with The Washington Post that he would have tough questions for the executives if he were still in Congress.
“This has been a colossal detriment to America, and you have profited enormously by it,” Sessions said he would tell them. “And I’m not shedding any tears if you’re no longer making profits.”
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