Dr. John N. Kapoor, the billionaire founder of Insys Therapeutics, was arrested and charged Thursday with bribing doctors to prescribe Subsys, a spray meant for cancer patients that contains the highly addictive synthetic opioid fentanyl.
Kapoor, 74, was arrested in Phoenix, and is facing federal charges of racketeering, conspiracy to commit fraud, and conspiracy to violate an anti-kickback law; the racketeering and fraud charges alone carry possible prison sentences of up to 20 years. Subsys was approved by the FDA to treat cancer patients who have pain that can't be helped by any other narcotics, and a 30-day supply costs between $3,000 and $30,000, NBC News reports; in the last year, Insys has sold $240 million worth of Subsys. Prosecutors allege Insys paid doctors hundreds of thousands of dollars in exchange for them prescribing Subsys, which is 100 times stronger than morphine.
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