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SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

COUNTY OF SUFFOLK

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THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, :

by BARBARA D. UNDERWOOD, :

Attorney General of the State of New York, :

Plaintiff :

: SUMMONS

v. :

: Index No.: 400016/2018

PURDUE PHARMA L.P., :

PURDUE PHARMA INC., :

PURDUE FREDERICK COMPANY, INC., :

Defendants. :

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TO PURDUE PHARMA L.P., PURDUE PHARMA INC., PURDUE FREDERICK

COMPANY, INC.:

YOU ARE HEREBY SUMMONED to answer the attached complaint in this action and

to serve a copy of your answer on the Plaintiff’s attorney within twenty (20) days after service of

this summons, exclusive of the day of service, or within thirty (30) days after service is complete

if this summons is not personally delivered to you within the State of New York. In case of your

failure to appear or answer, judgment will be taken against you by default for the relief

demanded in the complaint. Plaintiff designates Suffolk County as the place of trial.

Dated: Suffolk County, New York

August 14, 2018

BARBARA D. UNDEREWOOD

Attorney General of the State of New York

Attorney for Plaintiff

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By: __________________________

Carol Hunt

Assistant Attorney General

Health Care Bureau

120 Broadway, 26

Floor

New York, NY 10271

(212) 416-8005

[email protected]

Of Counsel:

Lisa Landau

Bureau Chief, Health Care Bureau

Kimberly A. Kinirons

Assistant Attorney General in Charge,

Suffolk Regional Office

David E. Nachman

Senior Enforcement Counsel, Executive Division

Jennifer Simcovitch

Assistant Attorney General, Health Care Bureau

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SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

COUNTY OF SUFFOLK

---------------------------------------------------------------

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, :

by BARBARA D. UNDERWOOD, Attorney :

General of the State of New York, :

Plaintiff, :

: COMPLAINT

v. :

: Index No.: 400016/2018

PURDUE PHARMA L.P., :

PURDUE PHARMA INC., :

PURDUE FREDERICK COMPANY, INC., :

Defendants. :

--------------------------------------------------------------- x

Plaintiff, the People of the State of New York, by its attorney, BARBARA D.

UNDERWOOD, Attorney General of the State of New York, respectfully alleges, upon

information and belief:

I. Introduction

1. This lawsuit seeks relief on behalf of the residents and government of the State

of New York for the years-long deceptive and unlawful practices of Purdue Pharma L.P.,

Purdue Pharma Inc., and the Purdue Frederick Company (collectively, “Purdue”) concerning

powerful and highly-addictive opioids sold by the company. Purdue effectively created the

market for use of powerful prescription opioids to treat chronic non-cancer pain, and it has

dominated that market since the mid-1990s, generating over $30 billion from the sale of its

drug OxyContin since it was introduced.

To create that market and achieve market

dominance, Purdue promoted its opioids heavily, directly and through third parties, in a

Harriet Ryan, Lisa Girion & Scott Glover, “‘You Want a Description of Hell?’ OxyContin’s 12-Hour

Problem,” L.A. Times (May 5, 2016), http://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1

(hereinafter

“OxyContin’s 12-Hour Problem”).

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manner that fraudulently oversold the drugs’ efficacy and failed to adequately address the

risks – and, as Purdue knew, the actual prevalence – of serious abuse and death presented by

its drugs. Through its actions, Purdue and its owners obtained billions of dollars in profits, at

the cost of lost lives and tens of billions of dollars in devastation inflicted on communities

that are now awash in opioids and their ill effects. Purdue now must pay penalties and

damages to the State of New York for its unlawful conduct, disgorge its ill-gotten gains, and

abate the resulting harm inflicted throughout New York.

2. Ongoing investigation by New York and other governmental authorities, as well

as recent investigative reporting, have revealed the nature, duration, and extent of Purdue’s

misconduct, despite Purdue’s efforts to keep it hidden. Purdue misled regulators in an effort

to get and maintain approval to market its long-acting and powerful opioid OxyContin.

Purdue represented that OxyContin was potentially less subject to abuse than other opioids

when it was aware that the opposite was likely true. It marketed OxyContin and other potent

opioids as appropriate for the treatment of certain types of pain, including moderate long-term

pain, when it was aware that there was a lack of sufficient scientific support for the safe and

effective use of powerful opioids to treat those conditions. As part of its multifaceted and

pervasive scheme to deliver misleading and false messages to New York prescribers and

patients about opioids, Purdue:

• Misrepresented the extent to which opioids improve function;

• Concealed the link between long-term use of opioids and abuse and addiction;

• Misrepresented the extent to which addiction risk can be managed;

• Masked the signs of addiction by calling them “pseudoaddiction,” and

encouraged further harm to consumers (and further ill-gotten gains to Purdue)

by calling for increased dosages of its opioids for those showing signs of

“pseudoaddiction”;

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• Falsely claimed withdrawal is easily managed;

• Misrepresented or omitted the greater dangers from higher doses of opioids;

• Deceptively minimized the adverse effects of opioids and overstated the

risks of alternative therapies for pain relief; and

• Deceptively asserted that that its drug OxyContin provides a full 12 hours of

pain relief.

3. Purdue spent over $1 billion on a sales and marketing blitz, unprecedented in the

history of controlled substances, which targeted doctors in multiple subspecialities, nurses,

physicians’ assistants, patients, advocacy groups, accreditation organizations, regulators, and

others. It proceeded both directly and through third parties, including through medical

professionals it paid to advance Purdue’s messaging (“Key Opinion Leaders” or “KOLs”),

and third-party organizations and websites that were in some cases secretly funded and/or

created by Purdue (“Front Groups”) to advance its messages. All of its messages were

disseminated widely, through a multitude of conduits, with the intent that the audience would

rely on them. For example, Purdue:

• Commissioned a massive sales force to visit or “detail” doctors to push its

messaging;

• Disseminated branded promotional materials about its own products to

prescribers and patients;

• Disseminated unbranded messaging, which referred to opioids more generally;

• Employed doctors who favored treating pain with opioids as “expert” KOLs to

support and perpetuate Purdue’s messaging;

• Funded and influenced the content of organizations such as the American Pain

Foundation;

• Sponsored and influenced the content of medical education seminars; and

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• Influenced the content of treatment guidelines that lacked evidentiary support

and disseminated the guidelines to prescribers.

4. Purdue’s goals in creating and carrying out the misleading sales and marketing

campaign were twofold. First, the company sought to overcome the well-founded historical

aversion to overuse of opioids because of their risks of addiction, abuse, and other ill effects

on health by encouraging such use in a host of settings in which powerful opioids had not

previously been used, including as an initial or routine therapy for the treatment of moderate

to severe non-cancer pain.

Second, Purdue sought to promote maximum use of its drugs to

treat this expanded set of conditions and patients by asserting its drugs’ superiority to other

treatments for pain, including other opioids. In pursuing both goals, Purdue misleadingly

portrayed its opioids as presenting a low risk of addiction when used properly, and its

powerful long-acting opioids, including OxyContin, as less subject to abuse, dependency, and

addiction than other opioid therapies. Purdue persisted in these misleading claims and others

even though the company became aware soon after it began marketing OxyContin that it was

in fact creating mass dependency on opioids among its user population and that OxyContin

quickly was becoming a favored drug of abuse and being diverted for inappropriate and

dangerous uses.

5. Purdue’s conduct attracted legal and regulatory enforcement action beginning in

2007, which resulted in various commitments by the company to improve its behavior and

desist from its more egregious conduct. For Purdue, however, these run-ins with law

See, e.g., Barry Meier, Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America’s Opioid Epidemic (2d Ed.

2018) (hereinafter, Pain Killer). The first edition of Pain Killer was published in 2003, well before the scale of

the current epidemic, and the extent of Purdue’s misconduct, was known. The second edition, published in 2018,

reflected significant additional research and updating.

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enforcement and regulatory authorities were mere speed bumps requiring it, at most, to

moderate some of its behavior even as it persisted in aggressive direct and third party

marketing that continued to underplay the risks and overstate the purported benefits of its

drugs. The enforcement actions included:

• In 2007, the federal government entered into a global criminal, civil, and

administrative settlement with Purdue and three top executives for $635 million,

pursuant to which Purdue and the executives pleaded guilty to criminal conduct

and committed to rectify the company’s misleading marketing activities;

• In that same year, member states of the National Association of Medicaid

Control Fraud Units entered into a $600 million settlement with Purdue for

“misbranding,” and a multistate group consisting of 26 states (not including New

York) and Washington, D.C. entered into a $19.5 million settlement with Purdue

for the company’s failure to adequately disclose that OxyContin posed an

unusually high risk of abuse; and

• In 2015, the New York Attorney General’s Office entered into an Assurance of

Discontinuance (“AOD”) with Purdue. The subject matter of the AOD was

narrow and focused on Purdue’s failure to identify instances of possible abuse,

diversion, or inappropriate prescribing occurring at the prescriber offices that

were visited by its sales representatives. The AOD also addressed Purdue’s

support of an unbranded website, “In the Face of Pain,” which promoted opioid

use and featured testimonials of persons paid by Purdue (but not disclosed). As

part of the AOD, Purdue pledged to strengthen its oversight of its sales

representatives, bolster its identification and response to signs of abuse,

diversion, or inappropriate prescribing by removing prescribers from its sales

call lists, and disclose its financial arrangements with individuals on its

unbranded websites.

6. Even after these agreements with federal and state authorities, however, and

despite its pledges to improve its conduct, Purdue continued to aggressively promote its drugs

directly through in-person marketing visits to healthcare providers and facilities (also known

as “detailing”), making over 114,000 detailing visits in New York between August 2015 (the

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date of the AOD) and December 2017 alone.

Although one of the goals of the agreements

was to improve Purdue’s recognition, reporting, and response to signs of abuse, diversion, or

inappropriate prescribing, up until it stopped detailing in February 2018, Purdue typically

flagged a prescriber as potentially problematic only when it learned that the prescriber had

been arrested or was the subject of an active investigation or disciplinary proceeding. Purdue

declined to use available data sources to more robustly target problematic prescribers. Purdue

also continued to make sales calls to doctors who were previously disciplined for

inappropriate prescribing.

7. In addition, despite New York and others’ efforts to make Purdue’s unbranded

marketing more transparent, Purdue aggressively continued to fund such marketing. As

revealed recently in a Congressional investigation, for example, even in 2017 Purdue covertly

continued to prop up Front Groups that were, among other things, resisting common-sense

efforts to establish national guidelines for the treatment of opioids that could reduce demand

for its products.

8. Purdue’s deceptive conduct not only contributed to the over-prescription and

overuse of Purdue’s powerful opioid drugs; it also contributed to dramatic growth in over-

prescription of branded and generic opioids more generally.

In February 2018, in response to investigations and litigation by the OAG and other state and local

governments, Purdue announced it would stop marketing opioids directly to prescribers.

http://www.purduepharma.com/news-media/2018/02/purdue-pharma-l-p-issues-statement-on-opioid-promotion/

See U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, Ranking Member’s Office, Fueling

an Epidemic: Exposing the Financial Ties Between Opioid Manufacturers and Third Party Advocacy Groups

(Feb. 12, 2018) (hereinafter, Fueling an Epidemic), available at

https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/REPORT-Fueling%20an%20Epidemic-

Exposing%20the%20Financial%20Ties%20Between%20Opioid%20Manufacturers%20and%20Third%20Party

%20Advocacy%20Groups.pdf.

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9. Purdue’s misleading efforts to create, dominate, and perpetuate the market for

powerful opioids in the treatment of chronic non-cancer pain by overselling the benefits and

underselling the risks of powerful opioids directly contributed to New York and other states’

dramatic growth in opioid prescriptions, which grew ten-fold nationally over the past 20 years.

10. In 2016, close to 9 million opioid prescriptions were written in New York State

alone. Prescription opioids are highly addictive and their users are susceptible to overdose and

death. Based on the latest available statistics, in 2016, there were 3,086 deaths from overdoses

involving all opioids in New York State. Of these opioid overdose deaths, 2,399 were from

opioid analgesics, including the opioids sold by Purdue. Statewide, outpatient emergency

department visits and hospitalizations for all opioid overdoses totaled 11,513 in 2016. By the

middle of 2016, New York began logging more treatment facility admissions for opioids

(105,822) than for alcohol abuse (103,469).

11. Nationally, more than 350,000 people have died from opioid-related overdoses

in the United States since 1999; five times as many people died from opioid-related overdoses

in 2016 as in 1999.

Indeed, in 2016, drug overdoses, over 60 percent of which were caused

by opioids, caused more deaths in the United States than gun violence or car crashes, and took

more lives than HIV/AIDS at the height of that epidemic. As the Cuomo administration has

declared, the opioid epidemic has reached crisis proportions; in 2017, “life expectancy for

Americans declined for the second year in a row . . .,” the Governor noted, due to a “21 percent

increase in drug overdoses. For Americans under 50 years old, drug overdoses, mostly opioid-

related, are the leading cause of death.”

Opioid Overdose—Understanding the Epidemic, Div. Of Unintentional Injury, Ctrs. For Disease Control &

Prevention (Aug. 17, 2017), https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/epidemic/index.html

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12. Purdue’s illegal and deceptive acts and practices contributed to a sea change in

health care professionals’ and the public’s perception of opioids in general, and Purdue’s drugs

in particular, in a manner that eroded appropriate cautions and safeguards concerning powerful

opioids and that led to its drugs’ over-prescription and overuse. Purdue’s acts and practices

over the course of almost two decades of aggressive and misleading marketing violated New

York law and contributed to the public health disaster with which New York and the nation are

now coping.

13. New York and its residents have sustained and continue to suffer enormous

harms as a result of the disaster that Purdue’s actions helped cause. These harms include the

loss of lives and the devastating emotional and financial effects on the loved ones and

communities left behind, babies born addicted to opioids, adults unable to work, emergency

treatment costs, law enforcement expenses, costs for overprescription and overuse of Purdue’s

drugs, costs of treatment for substance use disorders, medical examiner expenses, and foster

care expenses, among many other costs. The State of New York bears and will continue to bear

the primary burden of these costs through its state programs that fund drug treatment, health

care, and public services. In fact, even as the volume of opioid prescriptions shows signs of

slowing, the costs of treatment continue to escalate.

14. The State of New York brings this action to hold Purdue accountable for

unconscionably contributing to this public health and financial crisis. Purdue’s deceptive,

fraudulent, and unconscionable acts or practices, and the effects thereof, are continuing, will

continue, and are likely to recur unless permanently restrained and enjoined. In the pursuit of

billions of dollars in profit, Purdue’s conduct directly and substantially contributed to the

creation of an opioid epidemic – which constitutes a public nuisance – that has caused enormous

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public harm in New York and continues to jeopardize the health and safety of New York

residents. Left unabated, the opioid epidemic will continue to threaten the health and safety of

New York residents. The State of New York, acting on its own behalf and on behalf of its

residents, therefore seeks monetary and injunctive relief to abate the public nuisance and halt

the threat of future harm, as well as to compensate for and sanction past wrongdoing.

II. Jurisdiction and Parties

15. Plaintiff, the People of the State of New York, by Attorney General Barbara D.

Underwood, brings this action pursuant to Executive Law § 63 and General Business Law

(“GBL”) Article 22-A. Barbara D. Underwood is the Attorney General of the State of New

York and is authorized to: institute all actions and proceedings in which the State is interested,

N.Y. Executive Law § 63(1), including the common law and statutory claims set forth herein;

seek an order that enjoins repeated or persistent fraudulent or illegal business acts or practices

and awards damages and restitution for such acts, N.Y. Executive Law § 63(12); and bring an

action to enjoin deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of business and to obtain restitution

and civil penalties, including additional civil penalties for fraud perpetrated against the elderly.

GBL §§ 349, 349-c, 350, 350-d.

16. Purdue Pharma L.P. is a limited partnership organized under the laws of

Delaware with its principal place of business in Stamford, Connecticut. Purdue Pharma Inc. is

a New York corporation with its principal place of business in Stamford, Connecticut, and The

Purdue Frederick Company, Inc. is a New York corporation with its principal place of business

in Stamford, Connecticut. These defendants collectively are referred to herein as “Purdue.”

17. Purdue manufactures the opioids OxyContin, MS Contin, Butrans, Hysingla ER,

Dilaudid, and Dilaudid-HP. Purdue promotes, markets, advertises, and sells these opioids in

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New York. Purdue regularly conducts business within the State of New York and derives

substantial revenues from goods sold and/or consumed in New York.

18. The Attorney General provided Purdue with the pre-litigation notice required

by GBL §§ 349(c) and 350-c on June 12, 2018.

III. Purdue Promoted its Opioids, Including OxyContin, in a Repeated and

Persistent Illegal and Deceptive Manner

A. Opioids are Highly Addictive and Dangerous Narcotics

19. Opioids are powerful narcotic painkillers that include non-synthetic, partially

synthetic, and fully-synthetic derivatives of the opium poppy.

20. Opioids have addictive properties and are subject to abuse. Due to concerns

about their addictive properties, opioids have been regulated at the federal level as controlled

substances by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) since 1970.

21. Medical research has shown that opioids, particularly powerful ones of the type

marketed by Purdue, present unacceptable risks of harm to patients taking them except in

limited settings. Among other things, independent scientific studies of opioid usage have found:

• Mixed to negative outcomes from long-term opioid therapy in pain management

programs;

• A significant incidence of addiction among those taking opioids for all but short-

term ailments;

• Greater pain complaints and reduced effectiveness as most patients developed

tolerance to opioids;

• Opioid patients’ diminished ability to perform basic tasks; and

• Patients’ inability to make use of complementary treatments like physical

therapy due to the side effects of opioids.

22. Moreover, physical dependency makes it extremely difficult for many patients

to stop taking powerful opioids once they start. Research and experience reflect that

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discontinuing opioids after more than just a few weeks of therapy will cause most patients to

experience potentially severe and long-lasting withdrawal symptoms.

23. Research further demonstrates that the efficacy of opioids generally diminishes

over time when used to treat chronic pain. When under the continuous influence of opioids

over time, patients grow tolerant to their analgesic effects. As tolerance increases, a patient

typically requires progressively higher doses to obtain the same levels of pain reduction to

which he or she has become accustomed – up to and including doses that are frighteningly high.

At higher doses, the effects of withdrawal are more substantial, thus leaving a patient at much

higher risk of physical dependence and addiction. While public health and safety concerns

counsel against increases in dosage, Purdue’s business model envisioned increased profits each

time a patient increased dosage levels.

24. Other risks of longer-term opioid usage include overdose, respiratory

depression, hyperalgesia (increased sensitivity to pain), harmful interaction with other drugs,

hormonal dysfunction, neonatal abstinence syndrome, decline in immune function, confusion,

dizziness (and increased falls and fractures in the elderly), and potentially fatal interactions with

alcohol or benzodiazepines. High-dose opioids of the type sold by Purdue, and long-term

prescription of opioids for treatment of chronic pain, which have been a focus of Purdue’s

marketing efforts, present particular dangers of these adverse effects.

25. Usage of high-dose opioids generally, and the increasing dependency, tolerance,

and usage patterns that frequently accompany it, may adversely affect patients’ ability to work,

focus, or perform tasks of daily living. Many users become so dependent on prescription

opioids that they turn to drugs that have no lawful uses, including heroin, when prescribers limit

their ability to obtain lawfully prescribed opioids sufficient to address their dependency or

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addiction. Because powerful opioids are sought by those with opioid dependency or addiction,

powerful prescription opioids, such as the ones sold by Purdue, are particularly at risk of being

diverted from medical uses into the illegal drug market.

B. Prescribers and Patients are Reliant on Information Provided by

Purdue, KOLs, and Third Party Organizations to Help Assess

and Manage the Risks of Opioids

26. In view of the significant risks associated with consumption of prescription

opioids summarized above, it is critical that regulators, prescribers, and patients have ready

access to accurate information about the nature and extent of the risks, and the benefits actually

derived from use of the drug, in order to make an informed decision about whether to prescribe

or to take the drug. In particular, the practice of medicine requires prescribers and patients to

weigh the potential risks and benefits of each treatment option, as well as the risks of non-

treatment. Prescribers cannot do that without full and accurate information about the observed

benefits and incidence of adverse effects of opioid use.

27. Prescribers and patients have particular need for full and accurate disclosure of

benefits and risks of opioids for longer-term use, or for chronic conditions, before decisions are

made to prescribe and take the drugs, because of the risk that patients will become physically

and psychologically dependent on them as a result of longer-term use. Patients faced with

opioid dependency and doctors who treat them will find it difficult to manage or terminate their

use, even if the opioids are not providing the required benefit, or if adverse effects are

outweighing any benefits provided.

28. Full and accurate disclosure of the risks of these powerful and dangerous

controlled substances, however, would have run counter to Purdue’s profit motives. Purdue

therefore engaged in its wide-ranging scheme to ensure that full and accurate disclosure was

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thwarted. As set forth in detail below, Purdue’s misrepresentations and omissions operated

outside of, and served to subvert the effectiveness of, the labels mandated by the Food and Drug

Administration (FDA) for Purdue’s opioids, and muddied the statements that were regulatorily

required by the FDA. As a result, the disclosures that prescribers and patients rely upon could

not be satisfied by the presence of the labels on Purdue’s products. For these particularly

pernicious drugs, the misleading marketing messages delivered by pharmaceutical sales

representatives, educational materials, KOLs, and third-party organizations, including those

established and/or funded by Purdue, were especially influential in the treatment decisions made

by patients and their prescribing physicians.

C. Purdue Engaged in a Years-Long Scheme to Mislead the Public about the

Benefits and Risks of Opioids and of its Drugs

29. Purdue took advantage of prescribers’ and patients’ reliance on its marketing

messages, sales representatives, and KOLs, and on third-party organizations created, funded,

and/or supported by Purdue, to mislead healthcare professionals, patients, and the general

public. As set forth below, Purdue not only delivered misleading messages directly; it also

funded and otherwise supported KOLs and third-party organizations, in many cases secretly, to

ensure that its marketing messages were amplified, and that purportedly independent (but in

fact paid-for and biased) third parties endorsed and echoed Purdue’s misleading campaign and

helped Purdue resist efforts to reduce overuse of opioids and limit its profits.

30. Over the course of its scheme to persuade health care professionals to

overprescribe its powerful opioids, Purdue made numerous misrepresentations on a repeated

and persistent basis. As noted above, among other things, Purdue:

• Misrepresented the extent to which opioids improve function;

• Concealed the link between long-term use of opioids and abuse and addiction;

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• Misrepresented the extent to which addiction risk can be managed;

• Masked the signs of addiction by calling them “pseudoaddiction,” and

encouraged further harm to consumers (and further ill-gotten gains to Purdue)

by calling for increased dosages of its opioids for those showing signs of

“pseudoaddiction”;

• Falsely claimed withdrawal is easily managed;

• Misrepresented or omitted the greater dangers from higher doses of opioids;

• Deceptively minimized the adverse effects of opioids and

overstated the risks of alternative therapies for pain relief; and

• Deceptively asserted that that its drug OxyContin provides a full 12

hours of pain relief.

31. Purdue’s misrepresentations, made directly and through third parties, were

consumer-oriented, and were addressed to prescribers, patients, policymakers, and the general

public. They were material to prescribing, consumption, public opinion, and public policy

decisions, in part because of the particular importance of accuracy when describing the potential

risks of consumption of powerful and dangerous narcotics. Each of the misrepresentations was

made on a repeated and persistent basis, in some cases over the course of decades, both directly

and through KOLs and Front Groups. Each contributed to Purdue’s ability to pump up sales of

its powerful opioids and resist efforts to regulate its conduct and avert or minimize the public-

health crisis New York and the rest of the nation now face.

1. Purdue Developed and Carried Out a Continuing Fraudulent

Scheme to Create a Market for Powerful Opioids for Treatment of

Chronic Non-Cancer Pain, and to Dominate that Market

32. Purdue launched its blockbuster drug OxyContin as a timed-release formulation

of oxycodone, an opioid that is up to twice as powerful as morphine, in December 1995. The

launch occurred after Purdue persuaded the FDA examiner assigned to review the drug, over

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internal objections from within the FDA, that Purdue could claim that the extended-release

formulation of the opioid within OxyContin “is believed to reduce the abuse liability of a drug.”

Soon thereafter, the FDA examiner who approved this labeling claim was hired by Purdue.

33. Purdue then transformed the FDA approval by equating “abuse liability,” which

was based only on the fact that OxyContin was not an immediate-release drug, into a misleading

marketing message that OxyContin was less susceptible to abuse and addiction than other

opioids. This misleading message, along with other deceptive and misleading messages and

practices, completely transformed prescribing and consumption practices around the country.

34. Purdue explicitly focused its misleading marketing messages on potential

prescribers who lacked experience with the risks and potential benefits of powerful opioids such

as OxyContin. Marketing plans prepared by Purdue in connection with the launch of

OxyContin demonstrate that the company deployed over $1 billion in sales and promotional

spending during the first few years after launch of the drug to create a new market for powerful

opioids as a front-line therapy for the treatment of chronic non-cancer pain, to dominate that

market, and to expand that market regardless of the consequences for safety and public health.

Purdue did so in large part by targeting less sophisticated audiences that were treating or

experiencing non-cancer pain, and by delivering misleading messages directly to those

audiences rather than relying on pain management and other specialists.

Pain Killer at 76-77.

See, e.g., Kaiser Health News, “Purdue and the OxyContin Files,” https://khn.org/news/purdue-and-the-

oxycontin-files/ (containing redacted copies of Purdue’s 1996-2002 marketing plans for OxyContin) (hereinafter,

“Purdue and the OxyContin Files”). See also “OxyContin’s 12-Hour Problem”; Art Van Zee, “The Promotion

and Marketing of OxyContin: Commercial Triumph, Public Health Tragedy,” 99(2) Am J. Pub. Health 221

(2009), available at

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2622774/ (hereinafter, “Commercial

Triumph, Public Health Tragedy”).

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35. For example, Purdue’s initial marketing plans for OxyContin reflected, among

other things, direct efforts to deliver its misleading marketing messages to nurses, physicians’

assistants, pharmacists, and the general public, in an effort to overcome the well-founded

concerns that the public and influential healthcare professionals had about Purdue’s powerful

opioids. Even among physicians, Purdue sought to expand the market for its powerful opioids

to practice areas and specialties that Purdue knew or had reason to know at the time were not

appropriate settings for its extremely powerful and highly-addictive medicines. Purdue’s

marketing plan for 2002, for example, which was created well after Purdue was on notice about

the severe abuse potential of OxyContin, focused on “targeted efforts” to penetrate: “Primary

Care,” “OB/GYN,” and “Sports/Physical Medicine/Rehabilitation.”

Purdue also targeted

medical residents and fellows for their aggressive marketing push, noting that their marketing

effort “[p]rovides the ability to influence physicians still in training.”

36. As part of this all-out marketing push, Purdue sponsored thousands of all-

expense-paid meetings and other continuing medical education (“CME”) sessions that targeted

not only cancer specialists and pain experts, who were already familiar with the risks and

potential benefits of opioids, but also physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other medical

professionals who lacked training and experience with managing pain or recognizing patients

prone to substance use disorder.

37. During these sessions and through in-person sales calls and publications, Purdue

sought to persuade medical professionals, many of them inexperienced in the use of opioids for

“Purdue and the OxyContin Files” (2002 Marketing Plan) (hereinafter “Purdue 2002 Marketing Plan”).

Id.

Pain Killer at 79; United States General Accounting Office, “OxyContin Abuse and Diversion and Efforts to

Address the Problem” (Dec. 2003) at 23, available at https://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04110.pdf

(hereinafter

“GAO Report”).

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treatment of chronic pain, that they were undertreating chronic non-cancer pain, and that

OxyContin presented a safe and effective means of treating that pain, with a lower risk of

addiction, other side effects, and abuse, than other pain relievers. Sales representatives

employed and/or funded by Purdue made aggressive sales pitches to OxyContin’s expanded

target audience of all health care professionals who were presented with patients complaining

of non-cancer pain, saying, in essence, that OxyContin would enable “pain relief for these

patients without addicting them to an opioid.”

They encouraged primary care physicians and

others unfamiliar with pain management that they could trust OxyContin as a front-line therapy

for pain relief, as a pain reliever that doctors could “start with and stay with,” and they asserted

without foundation that OxyContin presented a risk of addiction to less than one percent of

patients, when Purdue’s own study demonstrated an addiction rate of thirteen percent.

Purdue’s sales force was trained that this sales message would enable them to reach the “pot of

gold” that awaited them “Over the Rainbow.”

Dr. Raymond Sackler, one of the founders of

Purdue, described OxyContin, armed as it was with these claims of safety, efficacy, and low

risk of addiction and abuse, as the company’s “ticket to the moon.”

38. Purdue also produced and disseminated to doctors, for use with the general

public, videos and pamphlets amplifying this same misleading marketing message. The videos

were disseminated without FDA review and approval, and contrary to federal regulations

requiring submission to the FDA of promotional materials. When the FDA later reviewed

videos with similar messaging, it concluded that the videos “appeared to make unsubstantiated

Pain Killer at 82.

Id. at 80; GAO report at 17.

Pain Killer at 82.

Id. at 41.

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claims regarding OxyContin’s effect on patients’ quality of life and ability to perform daily

activities and minimized the risks associated with the drug,” a conclusion that Purdue did not

dispute in its response to the report in which the FDA’s conclusions were contained.

39. During the years after the introduction of OxyContin into the market, Purdue

also engaged in other misleading efforts to market OxyContin as less addictive, less subject to

abuse and diversion, and less likely to cause tolerance and withdrawal than other pain

medications. Purdue specifically admitted, in pleading guilty to federal misbranding charges in

2007, that beginning in 1995 in its effort to launch and sell OxyContin, the company, “with the

intent to defraud and mislead” had misrepresented

• That the oxycodone within OxyContin was more difficult to extract from the

drug, when Purdue’s own studies showed that it was easily extracted when

crushed and dissolved in water;

• That patients could stop therapy abruptly without experiencing withdrawal

symptoms and that patients who took OxyContin would not develop tolerance

to the drug, when Purdue knew otherwise; and

• That OxyContin had fewer “peak and trough” blood level effects than short

acting opioids.

40. Also described in its plea documents was an aspect of Purdue’s manager

training, where Purdue used “peak and trough” graphs that misleadingly represent that

OxyContin, unlike immediate-release or short-acting opioids, did not swing up and down

between euphoria and pain, and resulted in less abuse potential (hereinafter, the “Peak and

Trough Graph”). Purdue admitted that this graphical representation, shown below, “falsely

stated that OxyContin had significantly fewer “peak and trough” blood level effects than

GAO report at 5, 27-28, 44.

Agreed Statement of Facts, United States v. The Purdue Frederick Company, Inc., 07 Cr. 29 (JPJ) (W.D. Va.

filed May 9, 2007) (hereinafter, the “Agreed Statement of Facts”)

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immediate-release opioids resulting in less euphoria and less potential for abuse than short-

acting opioids:”

41. Health care providers, including those with limited prior experience prescribing

and managing powerful opioids for chronic or longer-term conditions, responded to

presentations like these by prescribing OxyContin as a front-line therapy for treatment of non-

cancer pain. As use of OxyContin surged after its launch, Purdue quickly began reaping huge

financial benefits from sales of the drug. But as revealed by recent reporting and investigation,

Purdue also began to obtain clear evidence that its claims concerning the safety and lower

susceptibility of OxyContin to abuse were not only unsubstantiated, they were plainly false.

42. While Purdue has consistently denied that it was aware of abuse and diversion

issues associated with OxyContin until those issues were called to its attention by law

enforcement in or after 2002, recent investigative reporting has revealed this continuing

Id.

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representation to be false. As revealed by the May 2018 publication of the second edition of

the book Pain Killer, in fact Purdue’s senior executives learned in 1997, less than two years

after the introduction of OxyContin, that the drug was frequently appearing on websites and in

chat rooms frequented by drug abusers, at a volume that was “enough to keep a person busy all

day.”

Also in 1996, Purdue’s leadership began receiving anecdotal reports that the time-

release mechanism used in both OxyContin and a predecessor drug MS Contin that contained

a time-release version of morphine was being subverted easily by crushing and other

straightforward methods. By 1998, the company’s general counsel and owners were made

aware of reports in a Canadian medical journal concerning the widespread abuse of MS Contin

and a warning concerning the abuse potential of OxyContin. In addition, by 1999, the company

and its sales staff were receiving widespread reports from the field that OxyContin was being

widely diverted and abused.

Rather than withdraw the now-demonstrably false assertion that

OxyContin presented an extremely low risk of addiction (at times citing the figure that less than

1 percent of patients become addicted), and was not prone to abuse, Purdue doubled down on

it, reiterating misleading claims of Purdue’s safety directly and indirectly to tens of thousands

of prescribers and patients in an effort to influence their prescribing and usage decisions.

43. To address healthcare professionals’ observations that individuals prescribed

OxyContin were engaging in drug-seeking behavior consistent with addiction, Purdue falsely

represented that many individuals who exhibited signs of addiction to opioids were actually

experiencing a condition Purdue called “pseudoaddiction.” The term “pseudoaddiction” was

coined by Dr. David Haddox, who later became a senior executive with Purdue and who remains

Pain Killer at 179.

Id. at 177-80.

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Purdue’s Vice President of Health Policy to this day.

Pseudoaddiction describes the purported

inaccurate interpretation of drug-seeking behaviors in patients with ineffectively treated pain.

According to Dr. Haddox and Purdue, drug-seeking behaviors consistent with addiction in many

cases represented “legitimate” efforts to obtain more opioids for adequate treatment of pain –

thus the term “pseudoaddiction.”

44. This novel and empirically unsupported theory was advanced aggressively by

Purdue repeatedly and persistently through the time period relevant to this Complaint, in a

misleading effort to convert physicians’ and patients’ concerns about the drug-seeking behavior

they were seeing among users of OxyContin into a sales opportunity. Purdue persisted in

promoting its drugs to treat patients with these drug-seeking behaviors, arguing that most of

them were experiencing pseudoaddiction related to undertreatment of pain – which could only

be remedied by more of Purdue’s opioids. Purdue effectively encouraged medical providers to

ignore the hallmarks of actual addiction. Sales representatives understood when they were

promoting this concept of pseudoaddiction that it lacked sufficient empirical support and was a

sales tactic rather than a legitimate medical phenomenon.

45. During the years after the launch of OxyContin, Purdue’s sales representatives

and advertising also misleadingly implied that OxyContin provided a full 12 hours of pain relief.

An essential part of Purdue’s marketing message was that OxyContin produced a “smoother”

level of opioids in patients’ bodies, with fewer “peaks” of euphoria and “troughs” of insufficient

pain relief than competitor drugs, as reflected by the Peak and Trough Graph that Purdue

https://www.linkedin.com/in/j-david-haddox-dds-md-9225931 (last visited July 17, 2018).

Pain Killer. at 69-70.

“Purdue Pharma used deceptive sales tactic for OxyContin after settlement, ex-sales rep says,” CBS News

(June 21, 2018),

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/oxycontin-purdue-pharma-former-sales-representative-

deceptive-sales-psuedoaddiction/.

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acknowledged was misleading in connection with its guilty plea. This supported Purdue’s

efforts to persuade doctors and patients, including those without prior experience treating or

receiving treatment for longer-term non-cancer pain with opioids, that OxyContin represented

the best and safest front-line therapy for pain relief.

46. Prior to formulating the 12-hour relief claim, as well as after it began

disseminating it to the public, Purdue received numerous empirical reports that OxyContin was

not in fact providing “smooth” 12-hour relief to many patients. Despite that, Purdue did not

withdraw or qualify the misleading claim. Instead, it tried to “nip[ ] in the bud” any marketing

messages that acknowledged the inadequacy of OxyContin to provide 12-hour pain relief to

many patients. To address patients’ claims that OxyContin was not providing the promised

pain relief, Purdue misleadingly told physicians and patients that the appropriate remedy for

insufficient pain relief was increasing the dosage of OxyContin, rather than increasing the

frequency with which patients took the drug or changing to a different drug (either of which

would have undermined Purdue’s marketing messages and sales objectives). This had

devastating effects on many patients. They became more vulnerable to adverse effects as a

result of higher dosing, including poorer functioning, addiction, overdose, and death, but

without gaining enhanced pain relief because the drug failed to provide adequate 12-hour pain

relief even at higher dosage levels.

47. Also in connection with the launch of OxyContin and its efforts to transform

prescribing practices of healthcare providers throughout the country, Purdue funded efforts by

“OxyContin’s 12-Hour Problem.”

Id.

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KOLs and Front Groups, including Front Groups Purdue helped create,

to amplify and echo

its misleading marketing messaging through advocacy, publications, establishment of purported

standards of care for treatment of pain, and other means. By acting through third parties, Purdue

was able to both avoid FDA scrutiny and give the false appearance that the messages reflected

the views of independent decisionmakers. On numerous occasions, including but not limited

to those set forth below, Purdue misleadingly cited to these sources as “independent”

corroboration of its own statements when in fact Purdue was in close contact with these third

parties; had paid for and was aware of the misleading information they were disseminating

about the use of opioids to treat chronic pain; and regularly helped them to tailor and distribute

their misleading, pro-opioid messaging.

48. As discussed above, on May 10, 2007, Purdue and three of its top executives

pleaded guilty to federal crimes in the United States District Court for the Western District of

Virginia in connection with its misleading marketing campaign that accompanied the launch of

the drug. In connection with the guilty plea, the company admitted to certain misconduct in the

“Agreed Statement of Facts.” Missing from the Statement of Facts, however, was any

acknowledgement by Purdue about the misleading nature of many of the statements and conduct

set forth herein, including statements concerning pseudoaddiction, the purported 12-hour relief

properties of OxyContin, the use of KOLs and Front Groups to amplify misleading messages,

See, e.g., Pain Killer at 71-72 (describing Purdue’s secret creation and support for the Appalachian Pain

Foundation, which advocated for increased use of opioids and defended Purdue’s practices in the face of

evidence that the Appalachian region was awash in opioids); Charles Ornstein and Tracy Miller, “The Champion

of Painkillers,” ProPublica (Dec. 23, 2011), https://www.propublica.org/article/the-champion-of-painkillers

(noting Purdue’s role as an early funder and supporter of the American Pain Foundation, which supported

Purdue’s positions through publications, patient advocacy, and other means) (hereinafter, “The Champion of

Painkillers”); Matthew Perrone and Ben Wieder, “Pro-painkiller echo chamber shaped policy amid drug

epidemic,” Center for Public Integrity (Sept. 19, 2016),

https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/09/19/20201/pro-

painkiller-echo-chamber-shaped-policy-amid-drug-epidemic (describing Purdue’s role in creating and helming

the Pain Care Forum, which battled federal and state efforts to protect the public through regulation of opioid

prescribing practices).

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and other aspects of the company’s marketing campaign that understated risks and overstated

benefits of the drug.

2. Purdue’s Scheme to Mislead Persisted Even After Its Guilty Plea

49. Perhaps most egregiously, even after pleading guilty to criminal conduct in

connection with its misrepresentations about OxyContin, Purdue and its senior leadership

continued the ongoing scheme to mislead prescribers, patients, policymakers, and the public

about the risks and benefits of OxyContin, its other opioid products, and opioids more generally.

Because their own written communications with prescribers and patients were more closely

scrutinized as a result of the 2007 guilty plea, as set forth in greater detail below, Purdue relied

more heavily upon misleading third-party communications from KOLs and Front Groups after

2007 to support and carry out its misleading communications. In short, notwithstanding the

criminal guilty plea, Purdue’s scheme to mislead the public, grow the market for its powerful

opioids, and pump up the volume of its sales continued unabated.

50. For example, in September 2007, mere months after Purdue pleaded guilty to

criminal misrepresentations concerning OxyContin, Dr. Haddox delivered a presentation to

drug diversion investigators in which he effectively repeated many of those same

misrepresentations and made others. Among other things, Dr. Haddox presented the Peak and

Trough Graph that Purdue had acknowledged was misleading months earlier – though stripped

of specific references to OxyContin and other named opioids – as an example of the adverse

effects of immediate-release (“IR”) opioids, and he compared it to another graph that displayed

purported patient-controlled analgesia (“PCA”) in which the peaks and troughs of euphoria and

insufficient pain relief were eliminated, as set forth below:

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51. The next slide in the presentation asserted that the problems purportedly

associated with immediate-release opioids, including a “roller-coaster ride with on-again-off-

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again pain,” could be avoided “[w]ith a controlled release tablet that lasts for 12 hours…, or a

skin patch that lasts for a few days.”

52. While the Peak and Trough Graph, the comparison graph, and the associated text

did not specifically mention OxyContin (nor the then in-development Purdue opioid Butrans,

which is a “skin patch that lasts for a few days”), the import of the marketing message, and its

delivery by Purdue’s most senior health policy executive, was obvious. It, like the earlier

marketing messages Purdue admitted were fraudulent, continued to assert misleadingly that

Purdue’s opioids offered a safe and effective solution to problems of pain management that

could not be provided through other means, including immediate-release opioids.

53. Dr. Haddox’s September 2007 presentation, and other later marketing messages,

also misleadingly claimed that physical dependence on opioids was a manageable issue, similar

to the dependence that individuals taking asthma or blood pressure medicine experience after

taking those drugs for some period of time. This representation was misleading because Purdue

knew that physical dependence on opioids was qualitatively different from those drugs due to

problems of tolerance, addiction, and adverse effects that developed alongside physical

dependence and upon cessation of opioid consumption. The presentation also suggested that

drug abuse and diversion investigators had to “consider” the medically-unsupported concept of

pseudoaddiction, and undertreatment by opioids, as an alternative explanation for drug-seeking

activity when investigating patient behavior, as set forth below:

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54. Finally, the presentation, which was consistent with later marketing messages,

misleadingly attempted to draw a distinction between addiction and physical dependence by

claiming, without adequate medical support, that addiction was wholly different from physical

dependence: while addicts sought opioids to satisfy “the reward center” in the brain, according

to the unsubstantiated presentation, legitimate opioid users experiencing physical dependence

and engaging in drug-seeking behavior sought them to “reach opioid receptors in the spinal

cord.”

55. Purdue’s ongoing misleading messaging campaign extended to printed

publications issued by the company. For example, throughout the relevant time period, Purdue

published a prescriber and law enforcement education pamphlet entitled Providing Relief,

Preventing Abuse that contained numerous misrepresentations. Editions of the brochure

published and disseminated throughout the country through at least 2013 related the same

misleading assertions about pseudoaddiction that had been used in pre-2007 communications,

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despite efforts by some within Purdue to remove references to pseudoaddiction from the

pamphlet, as set forth below:

a. Attempt to delete reference to pseudoaddiction from a post-2007 version of

brochure:

b. Final version of updated brochure as circulated through at least 2013:

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56. Another misleading representation in all versions of the brochure, including

those disseminated after 2013, was made under the heading,

“Indications of Possible Drug

Abuse.” That section of the brochure showed pictures of individuals injecting or snorting

opioids as indicia of abuse. In fact, as Purdue well knew, individuals who resort to these

measures are uncommon; a

far more typical reality is that patients become dependent and

addicted, and that they begin to abuse opioids, through oral use. These misrepresentations

therefore wrongly suggested to

doctors and law enforcement that, as long as they did not

observe signs of injections or snorting, they did not need not be

concerned that their patients

were abusing or addicted to opioids. In addition, all versions of the brochure misleadingly

described addiction as a disease that is “not caused by drugs” and thus could be distinguished

from physical dependence and other drug-seeking behaviors, when in fact its drugs were a

necessary contributor to the dramatic increase in actual addiction that doctors were observing.

57. Purdue sales representatives also continued to spread misleading marketing

messages concerning Purdue products to prescribers through direct sales calls throughout the

relevant time period. Among other things, sales representatives were trained to continue

misrepresenting the extent to which OxyContin could be relied upon for 12-hour relief and to

recommend titration to greater doses, rather than alternative dosing schedules or medications,

as a means of addressing potential effects of the drug’s insufficient duration of pain relief. Sales

representatives also touted the tamper-resistant properties of a reformulated version of

OxyContin that began to be marketed in 2010, even though Purdue knew in 2010 that, as stated

in an internal report based on surveillance of online forums used by drug abusers, “abusers are

accepting the change [in formulation] and working to overcome the tamper-resistant properties

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of the new formulation of OxyContin,” and even though it was aware that oral ingestion – for

which tamper resistance had no effect – was the most frequent method of abuse.

58. Moreover, Purdue paid for and promoted articles that stated or implied that its

tamper-resistant drugs were safe, even while it was aware of the ease with which tamper-

resistant drugs could be abused through oral ingestion and other means. In 2014, for example,

Purdue placed three articles in The Atlantic magazine as sponsored content, including one

entitled “Take My Pain Away....A Physician's Perspective of Prescription Opioids and Pain

Management,” by Dr. Gerald Aronoff. That article misleadingly called the tamper-resistant

formulations (the most prominent of which was made by Purdue) “newer, safer alternatives”

that were worth using despite their “higher price tag,” and encouraged non-expert “physicians

[to] embrace these additional choices, rather than decide to leave opioid prescribing[.]” Reports

obtained from Purdue reflect that this promotional effort was closely monitored and measured,

and that it generated over 88,000 page views on The Atlantic’s website.

59. Purdue’s sales representatives also reiterated the misleading messaging of the

Peak and Trough Graph, and compared it to Purdue’s purportedly “smoother” concentration of

opioids in the blood, for years after the company admitted that this messaging was misleading.

Among other things, Purdue’s sales representatives told prescribers that its drugs were “steady-

state,” the implication of which was that they did not produce a rush or euphoric effect, and

therefore were less addictive and less likely to be abused.

60. In addition, continuing throughout the relevant time period, Purdue funded,

supported, and exercised editorial input and control over several communications by Front

Groups that (a) were less subject to governmental oversight and scrutiny than Purdue’s written

communications, and (b) enabled Purdue to claim that third parties had “validated” their

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messaging when in fact, Purdue had exercised influence over and funded these third-party

validators as well.

61. One of the primary Front Groups that Purdue used during the post-2007 period

to disseminate misleading statements was the American Pain Foundation (“APF”). APF was

a Front Group founded in 1997 that purportedly represented patients suffering from pain, but

that in fact received up to 90 percent of its funding from opioid manufacturers including

Purdue until it shut down in 2012 immediately after receiving a Congressional subpoena

inquiring into its activities and funding sources.

As part of that support, APF reported to

Purdue in 2010 that APF’s pro-opioid promotional activities funded by Purdue reached more

than 38.9 million people, as set forth below:

62. In 2009, in response to a proposal from APF, Purdue agreed to sponsor and help

distribute an APF publication targeted at veterans called Exit Wounds.

That book,

The Champion of Painkillers;” Charles Ornstein and Tracy Weber, “American Pain Foundation Shuts Down as

Senators Launch Investigation of Prescription Narcotics,” ProPublica (May 8, 2012),

https://www.propublica.org/article/senate-panel-investigates-drug-company-ties-to-pain-groups

. Some of its

publications, however, continue to remain available online, such as Treatment Options:A Guide to People Living

With Pain (2007).

Derek McGinnis, Exit Wounds (2009).

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purportedly written by a disabled veteran who was employed by APF with the “assistance” of

APF staff, deceptively portrays the risks, benefits, and superiority of opioids to treat chronic

pain. The book misleadingly describes opioids as

“underused” and the “gold standard of pain

medications” while it fails to disclose the risk of addiction, overdose, or injury.

It falsely

asserts that “[l]ong experience with opioids shows that people who are not predisposed to

addiction are unlikely to become addicted to opioid pain medications,” and it assures readers

that “most side effects [of opioids] disappear after a few days.”

Exit Wounds also minimizes

the risks of chronic opioid therapy and does not disclose the

risk that opioids may have fatal

interactions with benzodiazepines, which are taken by a significant

number of veterans.

The

publication also encouraged veterans that they “may need to push” doctors “hard” to get their

preferred pain treatment.

63. In 2011, Purdue sponsored APF’s A Policymaker’s Guide to Understanding

Pain & Its

Management, yet another publication containing numerous misleading statements.

Among other things, the Policymaker’s Guide characterized as a “Myth” the idea that

“[c]hildren can easily become addicted to pain medications.” According to the Guide, “[l]ess

than 1 percent of children treated with opioids become addicted.” This publication also asserted

that pain is undertreated due to

“misconceptions about opioid addiction.”

64. Among the purposes of the Front Groups was the perpetuation of fraud and

deceptive advertising and conduct against the elderly, in violation of Section 349-c of the

General Business Law. From the outset of Purdue’s deceptive campaign to create the market

for use of its powerful and addictive opioids to treat non-cancer pain, Purdue focused on the

Id. at 106.

Id. at 107, 110.

Id. at 128.

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elderly as a target market, noting in its initial marketing plans for OxyContin that it viewed

Long-Term Care (LTC) facilities, including nursing home MDs and RNs, as a primary audience

for Purdue’s marketing messages, and that it needed to reach “[i]nfluential decision-makers at

LTC facilities and corporate level nursing home chains.”

In 2012, Purdue contracted with a

foundation associated with the American Geriatrics Society (“AGS”) to develop new materials

that supported and promoted the AGS’s 2009

guidelines for the Pharmacological Management

of Persistent Pain in Older Persons.

These Purdue-supported and -promoted materials, which

remain available, falsely claimed that “the risks [of addiction] are exceedingly low in older

patients with no current or past history of substance abuse.” The Purdue-sponsored materials,

as well as other marketing messages delivered by Purdue, underrepresented the risks of

addiction as well as other serious side effects for which the elderly are particularly at risk.

65. In 2007, Purdue influenced the content of a nationally disseminated publication

issued by the Federation of State Medical Boards (“FSMB”), another group sponsored by

Purdue, called Responsible Opioid Prescribing. This publication, which drew on earlier

publications by FSMB also sponsored or created with input from Purdue, misleadingly

recommended powerful opioids of the type offered by Purdue, underplayed the risk of addiction

from those drugs, and reiterated the misleading concept of pseudoaddiction as an alternative

explanation for drug-seeking behaviors or abuse. Dr. Haddox offered extensive input into the

content of the publication; as he stated in an email to Purdue’s Chief Legal Officer, who had

pleaded guilty to federal criminal conduct, “I really want this to succeed, which is why I spent

so much time on it.” Even after 2012, FSMB continued to emphasize the misleading concept

of pseudoaddiction.

Purdue 2002 Marketing Plan.

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66. Throughout the relevant time period, Purdue also engaged KOLs to make

misrepresentations to physicians and the public regarding the length of time opioids would be

effective against pain. While serving as faculty or speakers at meetings attended by prescribers,

the KOLs used presentation slides created by Purdue to make these misrepresentations. Purdue

also instructed its sales representatives to make these same misrepresentations to prescribers.

The false statements and omissions by Purdue were made to doctors, other prescribers, and

consumers and led them to prescribe and consume Purdue’s opioid products.

67. Purdue’s efforts to perpetuate the opioid crisis it had played a central role in

creating continued even after it resolved an investigation of one aspect of its misconduct with

the New York Attorney General’s Office. In 2015, Purdue entered into an Assurance of

Discontinuance (“AOD”) with the State of New York in which it agreed to improve its abuse

and diversion detection (“ADD”) system, and in which it agreed to correct serious

misrepresentations concerning one website Purdue controlled under the name “In the Face of

Pain.” But as revealed by a lengthy, ongoing Congressional investigation in 2018, as well as

investigative reporting and investigation by New York and other states, even after the 2015

AOD, Purdue continued to engage in efforts to mislead the public, influence public policy and

public opinion concerning opioids, and resist efforts to place reasonable restrictions on opioid

prescription activity that might have reduced the scale of the crisis. In February 2018, the

Senate publication Fueling an Epidemic revealed that Purdue had been the single largest funder

of organizations that served as Front Groups or that otherwise advanced Purdue’s interests,

spending over $4.15 million between January 2012 and March 2017 on fourteen different

organizations that were examined by the Senate committee. This sum constituted

approximately half of all payments to third-party organizations examined by the committee

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from large opioid prescribers over the same period of time.

Much of this funding went to

organizations that, with Purdue’s knowledge and in many cases Purdue’s prior approval,

minimized the risk of addiction and made other misleading statements set forth herein. Many

of the payments from Purdue to these Front Groups were not adequately disclosed by Purdue

or by the Front Groups themselves.

68. Moreover, Purdue worked directly and through Front Groups it funded, in some

cases secretly, to defeat measures that would restrict overprescription, to limit accountability

for overprescribing physicians, and to resist and delay efforts by the United States Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) to develop guidelines (the “CDC Guidelines”) that

had the potential to reduce use of the extremely powerful opioids sold by Purdue and mitigate

the spiraling public health crisis that Purdue had helped create.

69. Purdue and other makers of prescription opioids also spent heavily and deployed

extensive resources to resist efforts by New York and other states to adopt measures that would

have mitigated the public health crisis that Purdue had helped create. In particular, as revealed

by a September 2016 investigative report by the Associated Press and the Center for Public

Integrity, Purdue led an effort by opioid manufacturers to deploy an army of lobbyists that

resisted common-sense restrictions on opioid prescribing and related practices. As part of that

effort, Purdue and other manufacturers spent over $880 million on lobbying and campaign

contributions targeting federal and state officials, including in New York, during the period

2006 to 2015 alone.

Among other things, as described in the investigative report and as

Fueling an Epidemic at 4-5.

Id. at 11-12.

Id. at 12-17.

Geoff Mulvihill, Liz Essley Whyte, and Ben Wieder, “Drugmakers fought state opioid limits amid crisis,”

Associated Press (Sept. 18, 2016),

https://apnews.com/86e948d183d14091a80f5c3bfb429c68/drugmakers-

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reflected in documents produced by Purdue pursuant to subpoena and reviewed by the OAG,

Purdue and other manufacturers operated directly and through an entity called the Pain Care

Forum, which was created and led by a Purdue lobbyist who used a Purdue corporate email

account, to influence federal and state legislation and regulatory activities.

70. Had Purdue conformed its behavior to the law when it began discovering the

extent to which its representations about the safety and efficacy of OxyContin were false, far

fewer prescribers would have received Purdue’s misleading marketing messages, and far fewer

people would have suffered the adverse effects of Purdue’s conduct. Had Purdue not resisted

the reasonable and common-sense efforts by the CDC, state and federal legislators and

regulators, and others to mitigate the public health crisis it helped create, which constitutes a

public nuisance in need of abatement, the scale and extent of the devastation it has wrought in

New York State would have been lessened substantially. Finally, had Purdue not acted through

Front Groups and KOLs, or continued to conceal its role in resisting common-sense efforts to

mitigate the crisis, prescribers, policymakers, and the general public would have recognized

that the resistance to these common-sense measures was being supported by a company that

had been convicted of a federal felony for deceiving the public and that had a profound self-

interest in continuing and extending the overprescription of its powerful and dangerous opioid

products.

fought-state-opioid-limits-amid-crisis. Members of the Purdue-created Pain Care Forum employed over 200

lobbyists in New York State in 2013 through 2015 – the most in any state – and made over $3.7 million in

campaign contributions between 2006 and 2015 – the second-highest sum of any state—according to data

obtained by the Associated Press. See

http://data.ap.org/projects/2016/cpi_ap_opioids/indexcpiap.html.

Matthew Perrone and Ben Wieder, “Pro-painkiller echo chamber shaped policy amid drug epidemic,” Center

for Public Integrity (Sept. 19, 2016),

https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/09/19/20201/pro-painkiller-echo-

chamber-shaped-policy-amid-drug-epidemic.

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71. Purdue’s continuing deceptive, fraudulent, and illegal conduct, combined with

its continued resistance to efforts to reduce the harms caused by that conduct, caused injury to

the State of New York and its residents constituting a public nuisance through an unbroken

chain of events commencing with the misleading marketing of OxyContin and other opioids

and continuing into the present; the crisis of addiction and the opioid epidemic flows directly

from Purdue’s conduct described herein. Indeed, by getting patients addicted to its drugs,

Purdue greatly increased the patients’ risk of harm from many drugs that share the same

addictive chemistry, such as heroin, fentanyl, and generic oxycodone.

72. Purdue fraudulently concealed many aspects of this scheme for years until they

were discovered recently by governmental agencies and investigative reporting. Newly-

discovered evidence published in Pain Killer reflects that Purdue and its most senior executives

were in fact aware of critical aspects of the public health disaster that they were helping to create

as it was unfolding, and that they nonetheless chose to persist in their misleading marketing

campaign in order to obtain the billions of dollars of profits that ultimately accrued to the

company, as well as the hundreds of millions of dollars that accrued to the company’s senior

executives and owners personally. Additional publications by Congress in February 2018, and

by the Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity in fall 2016, as well as document

productions by Purdue since 2016, reveal the extent to which Purdue used Front Groups to

advance and amplify its misleading messaging, and to resist efforts to forestall and combat the

opioid crisis.

73. Had Purdue come clean about the full extent of its misconduct, its senior

management’s knowledge of the misleading nature of its representations, and its continuing use

of third parties to advance its unlawful objectives, the resulting public health crisis that Purdue

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helped create may have been averted or at least diminished. Purdue’s misconduct could have

been discovered and stopped or diminished far earlier. Purdue’s ability to continue marketing

or selling OxyContin could have been restricted or effectively ended through debarment or other

proceedings, or further legal restrictions may have been placed on any representations it could

make concerning the drug, both directly and through third parties. Additional Purdue

executives who contributed and still contribute to the crisis may have been forced to resign or

otherwise been held accountable for their actions, thereby deterring future misconduct.

Moreover, the company’s ability to influence public policy and prescribers’ and patients’

decisions through ongoing misrepresentations would have been far more difficult had recipients

of Purdue’s marketing messages known the extent to which OxyContin presented serious

dangers to patients and to public health if used as recommended by Purdue, and the extent to

which the company’s management and leadership had deceived the public and remained

untrustworthy.

FIRST CAUSE OF ACTION:

PUBLIC NUISANCE

74. Plaintiff realleges and incorporates by reference each and every allegation in the

paragraphs above as if the same were fully set forth herein.

75. Purdue, individually and acting through its employees and agents, has engaged

in conduct or omissions which offend, interfere with, or cause damage to the public in the

exercise of rights common to all, in a manner such as to endanger or injure the property, health,

safety, or comfort of a considerable number of persons in the State of New York by its

production, promotion, and marketing of opioids for use by residents of the State of New York,

and its conduct in connection with that activity. While Purdue’s degree of care is not relevant

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in a common law nuisance suit brought by the State of New York, Purdue has behaved

negligently, recklessly, or intentionally as set forth above.

76. Purdue’s conduct is not only unlawful,

but has also resulted in substantial and

unreasonable interference with the public health and safety, and the

public’s enjoyment of its

right not to be defrauded or injured by wrongful conduct. Purdue’s conduct created, maintained,

and contributed to an interference with or injury to the public in the exercise of rights common

to all.

77. Purdue’s conduct is continuing in nature and has produced permanent and long

lasting effects. Purdue’s conduct is not insubstantial or fleeting. Indeed, its unlawful conduct

commenced at least twenty years ago and has so affected prescribing practices, consumption of

opioids, and public health on every geographic and demographic level that the

public nuisance

caused in substantial part by Purdue’s conduct is commonly referred to as a “crisis” or an

“epidemic.” It has caused deaths, serious injuries, and a severe disruption of public peace,

order, and safety; it is ongoing, and it is producing permanent and long-lasting damage. The

public health crisis Purdue helped create was extended and worsened by Purdue’s own conduct,

and its use of Front Groups, KOLs, and other methods to continue to mislead the public and

resist efforts to reduce overprescription of opioids.

78. Purdue’s conduct constitutes a public nuisance. The State of New York

therefore is entitled to an injunction requiring Purdue to abate the public nuisance by, among

other things, funding treatment, addressing the other adverse effects of the opioid epidemic,

supporting counter-detailing to educate prescribers and patients on the proper use of opioids,

and other measures required to remedy the harms it caused.

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SECOND CAUSE OF ACTION:

DECEPTIVE ACTS AND PRACTICES

79. Plaintiff realleges and incorporates by reference each and every allegation in the

paragraphs above as if the same were fully set forth herein.

80. GBL § 349 provides that "[d]eceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any

business, trade or commerce or in the furnishing of any service in [New York] are ... unlawful."

81. By engaging in the acts and practices described above, Purdue has engaged in

and continues to engage in deceptive business practices in violation of GBL § 349.

THIRD CAUSE OF ACTION:

DECEPTIVE ADVERTISING

82. Plaintiff realleges and incorporates by reference each and every allegation in

the paragraphs above as if the same were fully set forth herein

83. GBL § 350 prohibits “false advertising in the conduct of any business.”

84. By engaging in the acts and practices described above, Purdue has engaged in

and continues to engage in false advertising in violation of GBL § 350.

FOURTH CAUSE OF ACTION:

REPEATED AND PERSISTENT FRAUD

85. Plaintiff realleges and incorporates by reference each and every allegation in the

paragraphs above as if the same were fully set forth herein.

86. Executive Law § 63(12) makes “repeated fraudulent or illegal acts

or…persistent fraud or illegality in the carrying on, conducting or transaction of business”

actionable by the Attorney General.

87. By engaging in the acts and practices described above, Purdue has engaged in

and continues to engage in repeated fraudulent acts or persistent fraud in violation of Executive

Law § 63(12).

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FIFTH CAUSE OF ACTION:

REPEATED AND PERSISTENT ILLEGALITY

DECEPTIVE PRACTICES AND ADVERTISING

88. Plaintiff realleges and incorporates by reference each and every allegation in the

paragraphs above as if the same were fully set forth herein.

89. Executive Law § 63(12) makes “repeated fraudulent or illegal acts

or…persistent fraud or illegality in the carrying on, conducting or transaction of business”

actionable by the Attorney General.

90. By engaging in the acts and practices described above, which include violations

of GBL §§ 349 and 350, Purdue has engaged in and continues to engage in repeated illegal acts

or persistent illegality in violation of Executive Law § 63(12).

SIXTH CAUSE OF ACTION:

REPEATED AND PERSISTENT ILLEGALITY

CRIMINAL NUISANCE

91. Plaintiff realleges and incorporates by reference each and every allegation in the

paragraphs above as if the same were fully set forth herein.

92. New York Penal Law § 240.45 provides that a person is guilty of a criminal

nuisance in the second degree when, “By conduct either unlawful in itself or unreasonable under

all the circumstances, he knowingly or recklessly creates or maintains a condition which

endangers the safety or health of a considerable number of persons.”

93. By engaging in the acts and practices described above, which include violations

of Penal Law § 240.45, Purdue has engaged in and continues to engage in repeated illegal acts

or persistent illegality in violation of Executive Law § 63(12).

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SEVENTH CAUSE OF ACTION:

VIOLATION OF SOCIAL SERVICES LAW

94. Plaintiff realleges and incorporates by reference each and every allegation in the

paragraphs above as if the same were fully set forth herein.

95. Purdue violated Social Services Law § 145-b by knowingly, by means of a false

statement or representation, or by deliberate concealment of any material fact, or other

fraudulent scheme or device, on behalf of itself or others, attempting to obtain or obtaining

payment from public funds for services or supplies furnished or purportedly furnished pursuant

Chapter 55 of the Social Services Law.

96. As set forth herein, Purdue has knowingly set forth false statements or

representations, deliberately concealed material facts, and/or perpetuated a fraudulent scheme,

in attempts to obtain payment for opioids from public funds for services or supplies furnished

Plaintiff pursuant to Chapter 55.

97. By reason of Purdue’s violation of § 145-b, the State of New York have been

damaged.

98. Plaintiff is entitled to recover its damages caused by Purdue’s violation of § 145-

b in an amount to be determined at trial and subject to the treble damages and apportionment

provisions of § 145-b.

EIGHTH CAUSE OF ACTION:

COMMON LAW FRAUD

99. Plaintiff realleges and incorporates by reference each and every allegation in the

paragraphs above as if the same were fully set forth herein.

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100. Purdue, individually and acting through its employees and agents, knowingly

made material misrepresentations and omissions of facts to Plaintiff, its agents and employees,

and third parties to purchase, administer, and consume opioids as set forth in detail above.

101. Purdue knew at the time that it made these misrepresentations and omissions that

they were false. In the alternative, Purdue recklessly disregarded the falsity of its

representations regarding opioids.

102. Purdue intended that Plaintiff, physicians, patients, and/or others would rely on

their misrepresentations and omissions.

103. Plaintiff, physicians, patients, and/or others reasonably relied upon Defendants’

misrepresentations and omissions.

104. By reason of their reliance on Purdue’s misrepresentations and omissions of

material fact, Plaintiff suffered actual pecuniary damage.

105. Purdue’s conduct was willful, wanton, and malicious and was directed at the

public generally.

106. Plaintiff is entitled to recover its damages caused by Defendants’ fraud in an

amount to be determined at trial.

NINTH CAUSE OF ACTION:

UNJUST ENRICHMENT

107. Plaintiff realleges and incorporates by reference each and every allegation in the

paragraphs above as if the same were fully set forth herein.

108. As an expected and intended result of Purdue’s conscious and continuing

wrongdoing, Purdue, individually and acting through its employees and agents, unjustly

enriched itself at Plaintiff’s expense.

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109. It is against equity and good conscience to permit Purdue to retain the funds it

received as a result of its wrongful and continuing acts, practices, and omissions.

110. By reason of the foregoing, Purdue must disgorge its unjustly acquired profits

and other monetary benefits resulting from its unlawful conduct.

PRAYER FOR RELIEF

WHEREFORE, Plaintiff, the People of the State of New York, respectfully requests that

a judgment and order be entered that:

A. Permanently enjoins Purdue from engaging in the deceptive, fraudulent, and

unlawful conduct alleged herein;

B. Directs Purdue to abate the public nuisance and pay all costs of abatement;

C. Directs Purdue to disgorge all amounts obtained in connection with or as a result

of the violations of law alleged herein;

D. Directs Purdue to pay a civil penalty of $5,000 to the State of New York pursuant

to GBL § 350-d for each instance of a deceptive or unlawful act or practice that

violates GBL Article 22-A;

E. Directs Purdue to pay an additional civil penalty of $10,000 to the State of New

York pursuant to GBL § 349-c for deceptive and unlawful practices and fraud

committed against the elderly;

F. Directs Purdue to pay restitution and damages to the State of New York based

on Purdue’s fraudulent, deceptive, and illegal practices;

G. Awards the State of New York’s costs; and

H. Grants all other relief that is just and proper.

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