Publicis Health agrees to $350 million settlement over Purdue Pharma opioid marketing

Publicis Health, which has been accused of helping Purdue Pharma recklessly increase sales of OxyContin and other highly addictive painkillers for nearly a decade, reached a $350 million settlement with all 50 U.S. states to resolve probes into its conduct. The Publicis Groupe unit helped carry out a “predatory” marketing strategy to sway the most susceptible doctors to prescribe OxyContin at higher doses and for longer periods of time, according to statements Thursday from several state attorneys general. The decision comes three years after a lawsuit was filed against Publicis Health. “For a decade, Publicis helped opioid manufacturers like Purdue Pharma convince doctors to overprescribe opioids, directly fueling the opioid crisis and causing the devastation of communities nationwide,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of the leaders of the negotiations, said in a statement. Publicis Health, which worked with Purdue from 2011 to 2019, implemented the drugmaker’s “Evolve to Excellence” plan that targeted the doctors who prescribed the most OxyContin and flooded them with sales calls and marketing intended to increase the dosages even more, according to the statement. That, in turn, led to a major rise in opioid prescriptions across the country, followed by greater abuse, addiction and overdose deaths, the New York attorney general said. “This settlement, in which the Attorneys General recognized Publicis Health’s ‘good faith and responsible corporate citizenship’, is in no way an admission of wrongdoing or liability,” the company said in a statement. “We will, if need be, defend ourselves against any litigation that this agreement does not resolve.” Under the deal, $343 million will go to all 50 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia and certain U.S. territories to fight the opioid crisis, plus an additional $7 million for states that led the negotiations. As part of the agreement, Publicis is prohibited from accepting any future contracts or engagements related to the marketing or sale of opioids. Sign up for Ad Age newsletters From influencer marketing to agencies, get the latest news and analysis delivered to your inbox Click here Publicis is also required to release hundreds of thousands of internal documents showing its work with Purdue and other opioid manufacturers, as well as communications with consultants like McKinsey and electronic health record company Practice Fusion, to be included in an online document repository that will be available to the public. Publicis confirmed that the settlement will have no effect on its 2023 guidance or existing client relationships and offered the following financial breakdown of the settlement: “Following the payment of $343 million to the states, Publicis Health has been compensated by its insurers for $130 million. Consequently, it has recorded a non-recurring charge of $213 million before tax in the fourth quarter of 2023. After-tax, this non-recurring charge amounted to $160 million in cash, or €148 million. These transactions will be fully reflected in Publicis Groupe’s 2023 financial statements.” Publicis will be required to pay its settlement within 60 days. All the work on the Purdue account was done by a small agency within the holding company called Rosetta which has since closed, Publicis confirmed in a statement. The work “was undertaken primarily by Rosetta, a small agency shuttered 10 years ago, that was already working with pharmaceutical clients that manufactured opioid medication when it was acquired 13 years ago in 2011,” Publicis Health, which oversaw Rostetta when it was active, said in a statement. “Its work related to these products was used solely with healthcare providers, not consumers, using communication tools and language expressly approved by the FDA. Rosetta’s role was limited to performing many of the standard advertising services that agencies provide to their clients, for products that are to this day prescribed to patients, covered by major private insurers, Medicare, and authorized by state pharmacy boards." Cities, states and municipalities have hammered more than a dozen drugmakers, drug distributors, and retail pharmacies in litigation and forced them to pay $50 billion in settlements over the companies’ misleading marketing and mishandling of opioid painkillers, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News. Purdue’s $6 billion opioid settlement is currently under review by the U.S. Supreme Court, as the justices weighed Biden administration contentions that the accord improperly shields Sackler family members who own the company. Lawsuits have accused firms such as Purdue of downplaying the painkillers’ addiction risks and sacrificing patient safety to fatten up their bottom lines. The crisis has taken the lives of more than 500,000 people in the U.S. over the past two decades. Household names such as Johnson & Johnson, Walmart Inc. and CVS Health Corp., have reached settlements where they have collectively agreed to pay billions over the next two decades to bolster police and drug-treatment budgets drained by the opioid crisis. Others include distributors such as AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health, along with McKinsey & Co., another Purdue publicist. “Publicis was responsible for creating advertisements and materials such as pamphlets and brochures that promoted OxyContin as safe and unable to be abused, even though this claim was not true,” according to the New York attorney general. Publicis also agreed to release hundreds of thousands of internal documents related to its work for Purdue and other opioid manufacturers. The company will also release its communications with McKinsey and Practice Fusion, a software company that designed a health-records systems tool that included pop-up banners encouraging doctors to prescribe OxyContin, according to the statement. —Bloomberg News, with additional reporting from Ad Age’s Brian Bonilla Subscribe to Ad Age Sign up now for the latest industry news and analysis Click here

Publicis Health agrees to $350 million settlement over Purdue Pharma opioid marketing

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