McKinsey denies illegally hiding work for Purdue Pharma while also consulting for FDA

theguardian.com:

The head of the influential and secretive consulting firm McKinsey & Company has denied the company illegally hid work for Purdue Pharma, the drug-maker that kickstarted the opioid epidemic, while also advising for the Food and Drug Administration.

But Bob Sternfels, McKinsey’s global managing partner, apologised for the company’s work with Purdue, manufacturer of the powerful painkiller OxyContin that initially drove an epidemic that has claimed more than one million lives over the past two decades.

Sternfels testified to a congressional committee on Wednesday after it released a report revealing how McKinsey’s work for Purdue, including how to “turbocharge” opioid sales even after the drug manufacturer was convicted of federal crimes for illegally pushing OxyContin, was hidden from the FDA.

The report said that over a period of 15 years “at least 22 McKinsey consultants, including senior partners, worked for both FDA and opioid manufacturers on related topics, including at the same time”.

The FDA has said that it did not know until last year that McKinsey was simultaneously working for Purdue. The consulting firm was paid $86m by the drug-maker and $140m by the FDA.

The chair of the House oversight committee, Carolyn Maloney, told Sternfeld that McKinsey’s conduct was “among the worst I have seen in my years in government”.

“At the same time the FDA was relying on McKinsey’s advice to ensure drug safety and protect American lives, the firm was also being paid by the very companies fueling the deadly opioid epidemic to help them avoid tougher regulation of these dangerous drugs,” she said.

Maloney said that McKinsey designed strategies for Purdue and other companies to drive up opioid painkiller sales, paving the way for the