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Pain Hustlers: Crime and Punishment at an Opioid Startup Originally published as The Hard Sell Kindle Edition

by Evan Hughes (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 234 ratings
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The inside story of a band of entrepreneurial upstarts who made millions selling painkillers—until their scheme unraveled, putting them at the center of a landmark criminal trial. • THE BASIS FOR THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE PAIN HUSTLERS STARRING EMILY BLUNT AND CHRIS EVANS 

"Unfolds with the velocity and verve of a Scorsese film…A tour de force."—Patrick Radden Keefe, New York Times bestselling author of Empire of Pain and Say Nothing

John Kapoor had already amassed a small fortune in pharmaceuticals when he founded Insys Therapeutics. It was the early 2000s, a boom time for painkillers, and he developed a novel formulation of fentanyl, the most potent opioid on the market.
 
Kapoor, a brilliant immigrant scientist with relentless business instincts, was eager to make the most of his innovation. He gathered around him an ambitious group of young lieutenants. His head of sales—an unstable and unmanageable leader, but a genius of persuasion—built a team willing to pull every lever to close a sale, going so far as to recruit an exotic dancer ready to scrape her way up. They zeroed in on the eccentric and suspect doctors receptive to their methods. Employees at headquarters did their part by deceiving insurance companies. The drug was a niche product, approved only for cancer patients in dire condition, but the company’s leadership pushed it more widely, and together they turned Insys into a Wall Street sensation.
 
But several insiders reached their breaking point and blew the whistle. They sparked a sprawling investigation that would lead to a dramatic courtroom battle, breaking new ground in the government’s fight to hold the drug industry accountable in the spread of addictive opioids.
 
In Pain Hustlers, National Magazine Award–finalist Evan Hughes lays bare the pharma playbook. He draws on unprecedented access to insiders of the Insys saga, from top executives to foot soldiers, from the patients and staff of far-flung clinics to the Boston investigators who treated the case as a drug-trafficking conspiracy, flipping cooperators and closing in on the key players.
 
With colorful characters and true suspense, Pain Hustlers offers a bracing look not just at Insys, but at how opioids are sold at the point they first enter the national bloodstream—in the doctor’s office.
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  1. Print length
    274 pages
  2. Language
    English
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  4. Publisher
    Anchor
  5. Publication date
    September 26, 2023
  6. File size
    3485 KB
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From the Publisher

a tour de force says patrick radden keefe

a bracing look at an startup that made millions

a richly reported, mesmerizing tale says sheelah kolhatkar author of black edge

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0C6G9BJWC
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Anchor (September 26, 2023)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 26, 2023
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3485 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 274 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1035009706
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 234 ratings

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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
234 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

scaffali
5.0 out of 5 stars Two great books for the price of one
Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2022
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Evan Hughes has managed to combine two works into one. The first is a true story that reads like a novel, full of vivid and colorful, very human characters working in a small but innovative pharmaceutical company based in Phoenix. The second is a substantive, in-depth analysis of how one rogue pharmaceutical company allowed greed to take over its marketing efforts with disastrous effects for drug addiction, as patients became hooked on fentanyl and doctors put profits over safety regulations. Hughes tells how key figures of this particular company were brought to a dramatic trial in Boston and convicted, even though, sadly, some of their tactics are still clearly in evidence in other pharmaceutical companies who have thus far escaped the same punishment.
5 people found this helpful
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Valerity
4.0 out of 5 stars Drug games
Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2022
This is a well written and fascinating look at the world of Insys, a pharmaceutical company. It was formed by eccentric immigrant John Kapoor, who became a millionaire looking to get even richer. He developed a new form of fentanyl delivery called Subsys, and hired a bunch of shady people to push it to some iffy doctors. They found ways to target doctors that wrote a lot of opioids and went about trying to get them to switch to their new drug.

The book shows things that went on that were pretty shocking in how Kapoor had things done. Insys, with its drug Subsys joined Purdue Pharma and Cephalon, who both were in trouble over OxyContin and Actiq respectively. Purdue paid $600 million in 2007 to resolve charges, and Cephalon in 2008 paid a $425 million dollar fine over wrongdoing. It’s also about the US Department of Justice investigators from Boston who went after Insys and its executives. An incredible true crime story that shows what some people will try to get away with, given half a chance. Advance electronic review copy was provided by NetGalley, author Evan Hughes, and the publisher.
2 people found this helpful
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Savvy Geezer
5.0 out of 5 stars Required Reading for everyone needing health care
Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2022
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The American health care system is touted, at least by many Americans, as the best in the world. This true story exposes the underside of how it works at some companies, at least for the pharmaceutical industry. It should be required reading
for anyone taking prescription drugs, to understand that they have to be educated, skeptical, and questioning when taking prescription drugs of any type, not just opioids. Wait, not just prescription drugs, but also all the non prescription drugs, remedies, supplements and treatments offered to the public. It was great to read about how at least the top execs of one pharmaceutical company were caught illegally gaming the regulatory system to enrich themselves. Great read, and very illuminating.
6 people found this helpful
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Steve
5.0 out of 5 stars Fun, fast, and factual
Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2022
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The Hard Sell reads like a mob novel, a story of colorful characters doing terrible things whom you can't help but sympathize with at times. It's a work of journalism but also something of a page turner. But this real-life Breaking Bad doesn't quite end, because while the characters of the book each find their fates, the author takes care to remind us of a continuing industry, populated by characters smart enough to live a bit less colorfully, a bit more respectably, while performing in substance the same bad acts. The protagonists live large and it is diverting to be placed in their heads. But much of this book's punch comes when you set it down, think of the patients whom these protagonists never much thought about, about how odd it is that the "miraculous innovations" for which we tolerate extortionate prices by drug companies require little armies of peddlers to flog them, and we act as if that's necessary and normal and okay.
6 people found this helpful
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sadams
5.0 out of 5 stars What a page turner!
Reviewed in the United States on May 24, 2022
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This is a fast-paced, thrilling book that is difficult to put down. The characters are beautifully developed and the storyline moves apace. It’s unsettling and tragic to know it’s all true. Evan has accomplished the triple lindy of engrossing, enriching and enjoyable. Highly recommend!
2 people found this helpful
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M Arneson
5.0 out of 5 stars Very credible ein reporting
Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2022
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This story rings so true!

I wasn't even a minnow myself, through more than three decades of medical practice. I'm female and was educated in the era of great caution about prescribing narcotics, and then practiced in large groups with strict ethical guidelines restricting access of drug reps to physicians. Only in the first decade of the 21st century, when working in a practice group with looser rules and mostly male partners, did I see this dynamic in real life. (I had heard complaints from my husband about drug reps with a combination of tenacity and sliminess that earned them the name "barnacles," but they rarely crossed my path.)

What I experienced was far from working in a pill mill, but the success of persuasive strategies on my partners' prescribing practices was unmistakable, even in a practice group that did have guardrails.

Evan Hughes points out the need for guidance and guardrails in medical clinics, in insurer interactions, in regulatory agencies and law enforcement, and especially in the pharmaceutical industry. His conclusions about how the Big Pharma can continue to misbehave with just a little better cover-up schemes and better layering are chilling.
15 people found this helpful
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Kay A.
5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping and fast paced read!
Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2022
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This is a fascinating story and a very fast paced read. It flows like a novel ... I had to keep reminding myself that these things actually happened. The time that Evan Hughes put into research, fact checking, interviews etc. to tell this story is incredible.
2 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!
Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2022
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Highly recommend. A view of the greed that lies in the american capitalist soul. It is not the other that posisons us. It is we who choose greed to feed our egos. Look foward to reading other books by this author.
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