McKinsey and Company, the century-old international consulting firm, was a consultant to Purdue Pharma, the company that produced the opioid OxyContin.

Increasing addiction and death rates caused by overprescribing of the drug resulted in a national crisis. Purdue declared bankruptcy and currently owes $8.3 billion under a settlement approved by the court. Pharmacy chains have had multibillion jury verdicts handed down for their role in filling the prescriptions.

During a trial in Oklahoma that was part of litigation by state attorneys general to recover health care costs incurred because of opioid addiction treatments, evidence emerged about McKinsey’s role as a consultant to Purdue.

McKinsey had advised Purdue on how to “turbocharge” sales of OxyContin through a structured rebate program. McKinsey’s PowerPoint slides showed Purdue how to use higher rebates for higher strength prescriptions. The soft language of “innovative contracts” was used to describe these pay-to-prescribe program.110 It’s as if the two parties had been weighing the benefits of consumer coupons for Uncrustables.

A McKinsey spokesperson emphasized that the rebates were not intended to boost sales. However, the slides appear to contradict that statement.111 One McKinsey executive noted, “While we can’t change the past, we can learn from it.” Referring to Reading 3.3 and Units 1 and 2, make a list of the lessons that McKinsey could learn about ethical analysis when choosing its clients as well as when developing recommendations for those clients. P-6523