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SHANGHAI (AP) — The Sackler family’s opioid empire in the United States is collapsing under an avalanche of litigation over marketing tactics that has driven their company, Purdue Pharma, into bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, the family continues to profit from sales of their signature painkiller OxyContin abroad.
Interviews and documents obtained by AP show their international affiliate, Mundipharma, has been driving growth in China using many of the same tactics that Purdue was forced to abandon in the U.S. as the death toll from opioid overdoses soared.
Mundipharma aggressively pushed high doses of opioids in China, despite warnings that higher doses carry higher risks of overdose and death.
Mundipharma sales representatives said managers required them to copy patients’ private medical records without consent to better target sales, in apparent violation of Chinese law.
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