McKinsey will pay $650m to feds over its role in opioid crisis

McKinsey reached its largest settlement yet over its role in the opioid crisis, according to reports of federal court filings made Friday, and a former senior partner agreed to plead guilty to deleting documents to hide McKinsey’s involvement. McKinsey will pay $650 million to settle the federal government’s criminal and civil cases over the firm’s role in helping Purdue Pharma and other opioid makers more aggressively push the powerful painkillers. The newest federal settlement puts McKinsey’s total agreed-to payments from opioid-related settlements above $1.5 billion.

The Justice Department will defer prosecution and eventually drop the case entirely if McKinsey upholds its side of the settlement. In addition to paying $650 million over five years, the firm must “improve its compliance practices to detect illegal activity and submit to oversight from the DOJ and US Department of Health and Human Services inspector general’s office,” CNN reported. McKinsey will also “enter into a ‘corporate integrity’ agreement with the [Health and Human Services] inspector general’s office,” according to CNN.

Martin Elling, a former senior partner at McKinsey, will “plead guilty to obstruction of justice for deleting documents from his laptop after he became aware of investigations into Purdue Pharma,” the AP reported.

McKinsey’s role. Court records showed how McKinsey helped drugmakers maximize sales, including by “advis[ing] Purdue’s sales team to pursue healthcare providers it knew wrote high volumes of OxyContin prescriptions and spend less time on doctors who prescribed the opioid medication the least,” the Wall Street Journal reported. The company told Purdue and Endo International, another opioid maker, “how to target the US Department of Veterans Affairs for sales of their products.” McKinsey hasn’t advised “opioid-specific businesses” since 2019, the Journal reported.

“We should have appreciated the harm opioids were causing in our society and we should not have undertaken sales and marketing work for Purdue Pharma,” the firm said in a statement. “This terrible public health crisis and our past work for opioid manufacturers will always be a source of profound regret for our firm.”

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