Competitive Intelligence

Fighting OxyContin: the Miracle Drug Turned Deadly, Purdue Pharma Seeks Delay of Rivals

OxyContin is an important pharmaceutical – to the terminal cancer patients and other chronic pain sufferers that use it, to its maker Purdue Pharma who generates more than a billion dollars in sales from it (despite a judge's ruling earlier this month that its patent was invalid), and to the junkies who can’t live without it. If you’re curious about that last angle, there’s a feature article you can read at CourtTV.com that samples the sort of turmoil and death OxyContin abuse has become.

But Purdue’s cash cow is also attractive to generic competitors – notably Endo Pharmaceuticals who is on the brink of introducing a generic alternative that will erode as much as 80 percent of Purdue’s market share in a matter of months – that is, if Purdue’s latest legal petition fails to prevent it, after Purdue was found to have misled the patent office to delay competitors in the past and lost its patent. Here’s a link to the story.

The active ingredient in OxyContin, Oxycodone, is a powerful opiate and has been present in many other pharmaceuticals for a long time, but what makes Purdue’s drug so dangerous and susceptible to abuse is the density of the ingredient in OxyContin's time-release delivery mechanism. It’s perfectly safe and effective when used as directed, but when crushed and snorted can deliver fatal doses of the drug with a euphoric kick - not to mention addictive qualities - to rival heroin. These days, an illicit OxyContin prescription goes for $4,000 on the street.

- Arik