Pain-pill giant Purdue Pharma LP will stop promoting its opioid drugs to doctors, a retreat after years of criticism that the company’s aggressive sales efforts helped lay the foundation of the U.S. addiction crisis.
The company told employees this week that it would cut its sales force by more than half, to 200 workers. It plans to send a letter Monday to doctors saying that its salespeople will no longer come to their clinics to talk about the company’s pain products.
“We have restructured and significantly reduced our commercial operation and will no longer be promoting opioids to prescribers,” the company said in a statement. Instead, any questions doctors have will be directed to the Stamford, Connecticut-based company’s medical affairs department.
Recommended For You
Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.
Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
