“IN 2002, Martin Elling, along with three colleagues at the global consulting firm McKinsey & Company, published an article in the firm’s quarterly journal intended to gin up more business from the pharmaceutical industry. Elling’s article argued that drug companies were missing an opportunity by not tracking how often individual physicians were prescribing certain drugs. By aggregating such data, pharmaceutical salespeople could target their marketing pitches to the doctors most likely to become heavy prescribers, and the sales reps themselves could also be better evaluated by their companies. Soon enough, a relatively unknown drug company called Purdue Pharma ca1ne calling, retaining McKinsey in 2004 to help increase sales of its opioid pain killer OxyContin which had already topped $1 billion annually. In the face of a worsening national opioid addiction crisis and multiple state and federal investigations, prescriptions of high strength OxyContin pills had begun to level off. Among other recommendations, McKinsey, led by Elling and his team, suggested “turbocharging” sales through more innovative and aggressive marketing tactics. Between 2004 and 2019, Purdue paid Mc Kinsey $83.71nillion in fees.”- The Invisible hand by Sheelah Kolhatkar, NYT, Sept 2022 (PDF of Full article below).
Thanks to Peter Curtis for bringing our attention to the NYT article, The Invisible Hand, about the McKinsey consulting firm.
There is no doubt the medical industrial complex is as much part of the capitalist system as any other industry in the United States.
Recently there was a strike of 11,000 workers at the NYT owned by a company which refuses to pay a living wage in one of the most expensive cities in the world … see https://workersbushtelegraph.com.au/2022/12/13/she-said/
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Ian Curr
Workers BushTelegraph
E. iancurr@bigpond.com
T. 0407 687 016
McKinsey Is a Consulting Powerhouse. But Is It a Force for Good?
“When McKinsey Comes to Town,” by the Times reporters Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe, argues that the legendary firm has accrued an inordinate amount of influence chasing profits at the expense of moral principle.
By Sheelah Kolhatkar