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Informationen zum Autor EVAN HUGHES was a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Reporting in 2015. He has written for The New York Times Magazine , GQ , New York , Wired, and The New York Review of Books . He is the author of Literary Brooklyn . Klappentext "The blistering inside story of a startup that made millions pushing opioids-until its cutthroat tactics were exposed and its executives put behind bars John Kapoor had amassed a small fortune in pharmaceuticals when he conceived of a new product. It was the 2000s, and opioids were big business. If Kapoor, an immigrant and the billionaire founder of Insys, could find a new way to administer the highly potent fentanyl, he could patent his invention and sell it to those in need-at a steep price. The only problem: There weren't enough people in need. Kapoor's drug was approved for breakthrough cancer pain. If Subsys was going to turn a profit, the company would need to persuade doctors to prescribe it "off-label," for other, lesser forms of pain. This is the story of how Insys turned a niche drug into big business. With executives leading the charge, Insys sales reps seduced doctors with charm, money, and sex. Its administrators lied to health care providers, claiming recipients had cancer when they did not. It pushed drugs onto patients that would have benefited from safer options, or no drugs at all. The strategy worked: When Insys went public, it notched the biggest IPO of its year. But several employees reached their limit and quietly blew the whistle, bringing the full force of the justice system upon the drug maker. In The Hard Sell, author and National Magazine Award-finalist Evan Hughes lays bare the pharma playbook. He shows how drug makers like Insys, fueled by greed and a hunger for market share, turn deception into profit. The book represents a stunning vindication, but also a cautionary tale. As Hughes shows, Insys didn't do anything its competitors weren't also doing. It was simply worse at covering its tracks"-- Leseprobe PROLOGUE Gavin Awerbuch had a long commute, but often he arrived at work before dawn. After an hour and a half ’s drive, his headlights would swing into the parking lot, illuminating a one-story beige brick building that resembled a shopping plaza, divided into storefronts. It was Saginaw, Michigan. In the winters it was frigid. Awerbuch would get out of his Chevrolet HHR, and when he was the first one there, he would unlock the door. He worked in the unit farthest to the right, where his name was stenciled in white letters on the glass door. Awerbuch was too busy to pay much attention to his appearance. His graying hair sprouted in every direction, and he was often unshaven. At the office, he wore casual clothes—a sweatshirt and jeans, perhaps. He was disheveled enough that people wondered if he had slept in his outfit. His lab coat looked as if it could use a wash. He would shrug it on over his street clothes after he arrived at the office. Then the people would come, in a constant flow. Awerbuch was a doctor. He was educated at Michigan State, the University of Arizona, and Wayne State University in Detroit. In 1989, he completed the specialized training to become a neurologist, treating conditions of the nervous system. In the early years, his prac- tice evolved from focusing on disorders such as stroke and multiple sclerosis into managing pain in a broader set of patients. People came to him suffering from migraines, neck pain, back pain. By 2012, Awerbuch’s clinic was a major medical destination in the area, about ninety miles northwest of Detroit, not far from Flint. Awerbuch had around five thousand active patients, pouring into the small office suite at a rate of perhaps fifty a day. Some of them drove for hours to see him, from as far away as Michigan’s Upper Penin- sula. The wait was long once they got there. ...
