UK drug maker accused of fuelling deadly opioid epidemic

Indivior charged with fraud in US Shares crash 72pc as it faces £2.3bn fine

BRITISH drug maker Indivior faces bankruptcy after the US Government accused it of overseeing a multi-billion pound fraud to drive up sales of its opioid addiction treatment.

The FTSE 250 firm’s shares crashed by more than 70pc after prosecutors claimed it had engaged in a ‘ truly shameful scheme’ that put profits before the health of patients.

It is accused of using shaky evidence to falsely claim a new version of its Suboxone treatment was safer than rival products – and raking in billions of pounds from subsequent sales.

If found guilty, the company will be ordered to hand over at least £2.3bn.

But analysts have warned Indivior cannot afford to pay. Shares fell 72pc, or 75.9p, to 30.05p - valuing it at just £219m. It was worth £774m before yesterday’s sell-off and £3.6bn last summer.

Every year millions of Americans use opioids to manage pain – triggering an addiction epidemic that has been described as the worst drugs crisis in US history.

More than 72,000 people in the US died from drug overdoses in 2017 alone, according to official figures, with two thirds of these linked to opioids.

Announcing the charges brought by a federal grand jury, American prosecutors said ‘the deadly opioid epidemic continues to devastate communities and families across our nation’.

They said Indivior and its executives were ‘in a position to know the harm opioid abuse inflicts’ but had chosen to ‘profit illegally from the pain of others’.

Jody Hunt, of the Department for Justice, said: ‘Opioid addiction is a national epidemic. Rather than marketing its opioid-addiction drug responsibly, Indivior promoted it with a disregard for the truth about its safety and despite known risks of diversion and abuse.’

Mark Herring, another prosecutor, added: ‘Our indictment alleges a wide-ranging and truly shameful scheme to put profits over the health and well-being of patients trying to manage substance use disorder and opioid dependence.’

Indivior fought back against the allegations, issuing an eightpage statement in its defence. ‘Put simply, Indivior is not a contributor to the opioid epidemic,’ it said. ‘Rather, its medicines are a key part of combatting it.’

The charges centre on Suboxone, by far the Indivior’s most profitable drug, which earned it £680m in sales in 2013 alone. At one stage Suboxone tablets dominated the market for treating opioid addiction in the US, accounting for 85pc of sales.

But the expiry of the medicine’s patent in 2009 raised the prospect of copycat versions being sold by rivals, and Indivior bosses were desperate to delay this, according to American prosecutors.

In 2010, the company launched a film version of Suboxone that could be placed under the tongue and dissolved.

It then launched a marketing campaign which aimed to persuade doctors to stop prescribing tablets and replace them with the film version.

But while Indivior argued the film was safer – because it was less likely to be abused and more difficult for children to accidentally use – the company ‘lacked any scientific evidence’ to support this, prosecutors say.

It also set up a ‘Here to Help’ internet and telephone scheme which put patients in touch with doctors who the company ‘knew were issuing careless, clinically unwarranted prescriptions’ for the medicine.

Then in 2012, as rivals were close to launching generic tablets, Indivior announced it would stop selling its own Suboxone tablets completely – and told regulators they posed a risk to children who might accidentally eat them.

‘ In fact, Indivior executives knew the primary reason for the discontinuance was to delay the approval of generic tablet forms of the drug,’ prosecutors said.