Purdue Pharma: Ethical Success Analysis and Recommendations Report

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Purdue Pharma's business practices, focusing on the ethical considerations surrounding the company's actions related to OxyContin. The report examines the concept of business success and whether a company can be considered successful if it operates unethically, using Purdue Pharma as a case study. It explores the perspectives of various stakeholders, including the company itself, the public, medical staff, and patients, to determine the impact of Purdue Pharma's practices. The analysis highlights the financial gains the company achieved through aggressive marketing, but also emphasizes the severe health consequences and legal repercussions that ultimately led to the company's downfall. The report concludes that while unethical practices may yield short-term financial benefits, they ultimately undermine long-term success. Finally, the report offers recommendations for companies to protect themselves against unethical behavior, focusing on training, monitoring, reinforcement, and balancing various interests to promote ethical conduct and sustainable success.

ACADEMIC AND
PROFESSIONAL
SKILLS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Success is one of the most evident and essential reasons for procedures and practices
adopted by a business. This could be in terms of monetary benefits, or higher market share, etc.
However, one of the major causes of success is related to ethics. Hence, the report below is based
on whether a company could be claimed as successful if it is not ethical. For this purpose, case
study of Purdue Pharma has been taken into consideration, which was responsible for fuelling a
major health crisis in US by its drug called OxyContin.
Purpose of the report was to analyse as to whether the organisation could be called
successful if the firm is not working ethically. For this agenda, perspectives of the company,
medical staff, patients and public were undertaken, which showcased that the firm, though
commercially profitable at one point of time, could not be claimed as successful.
Another agenda of the report was to present recommendations which the company could
undertake in order to protect itself against unethical practices. To attain this agenda, several
recommendations, in relation to training, monitoring, reinforcements and balancing were
provided to the organisation, which would further allow the firm to be successful in future,
through following appropriate and ethical code of conduct.

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
ANALYSIS......................................................................................................................................1
Success from Perspective of Purdue Pharma..............................................................................2
Success from Perspective of Public............................................................................................2
Success from Perspective of Medical Staff.................................................................................3
Success from Perspective of Patients..........................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
RECOMMENDATION...................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Success refers to a phenomena where an organisation effectively and appropriately
accomplish every set objective, which the firm set in order to ensure its sustainability and
profitability (Darmon and et. al., 2016). Furthermore, it means an outcome of several activities
and procedures adopted by organisation to ensure achievement of its goals. For an organisation,
success could mean better profits, higher financial gain, better market position and appropriate
and effective sustainability.
However, within success of a business, ethics play a vital role. It refers to the values,
beliefs and framework, which is supposed to be followed and complied by an organisation, in
relation to ensure an ethical pathway which leads to success effectively (Mullender-Wijnsma and
et. al., 2016). The role of this element within success is that, it allows an organisation to develop
and adopt procedures that are socially accepted, as well as ensure utmost benefit to all the
stakeholders associated with the firm' s offerings. Moreover, another role this aspect plays, is in
context of enhancing the goodwill and reputation of a company in the market, which enhances
the scope of its sustainability.
“The Sackler Family and OxyContin” is about how a company, Purdue Pharma, owned
by the billionaire Sackler Family, and how the firm has been indulged in developing, marketing
and selling a prescription painkiller by the name of OxyContin. However, this drug is is highly
addictive, due to presence of opioids, which is the cause of hundreds of deaths within US.
Moreover, despite of being on such an unethical pathway, the organisation continued to produce
this drug till its patent expired. Hence, the report below aims at analysing as to whether the
organisation could be described as successful if it was not ethical, along with actions to be taken
by the company to protect itself against unethical behaviour.
ANALYSIS
The analysis within this report is related to different perspectives, associated with the
case and whether the company is successful, based on thinking of different stakeholders that are
related to the firm as well as the product. Thus, below is an appropriate analysis to ensure that
whether the firm has been successful:
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Success from Perspective of Purdue Pharma
It is highly essential to analyse perspective of the organisation, in relation to
understanding what success means to them. Purdue Pharma introduced OxyContin in 1996, in a
view to earn profit. The organisation used aggressive marketing in order to market this drug to
customers, which helped the company to earn an effective profit of $1.1 billion in 2000 (The
Promotion and Marketing of OxyContin: Commercial Triumph, Public Health Tragedy, 2019).
Moreover, the firm was a commercial triumph as the sales figure was more than $12 Billion
Dollars, till its patent got expired (The Sacklers Made More Than $12 Billion In Profit From
OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma, New Report Says, 2019). Thus, with such a high revenue, the
firm considered itself successful while it was selling this product within the US markets.
Moreover, despite severe health related problems, the organisation was consistent in producing
and marketing this product at a large scale, giving justification of how this drug is quite healthy
and at par level with the standards set up by the government. The perspective of the organisation
was 'profits over people', and according to them, until the patent expired, they earned a
substantial amount of profit, which was a commercial success.
However, in context of unethical behaviour, the profits have been seriously affected
lately. This is because, there have been a number of lawsuits against the company, in relation to
such heavy production and marketing of OxyContin, which caused severe health related issues,
along with enhanced death rate, due to presence of opioids. This caused the firm to file for
bankruptcy, as all its profits went to settle multiple lawsuits. Thus, unethical behaviour of the
organisation cost the company its financial gain as well as savings, which made it unsuccessful
in future (Durkin and Gunn, 2016). Moreover, this reflects that the idea of business, along with
its performance was highly ineffective, which required the firm to monitor and appropriately
change their business practices while conducting their business practices.
Success from Perspective of Public
In perspective of public, the practices in which Purdue Pharma was indulged in, was
highly inappropriate and unethical. There have been several allegations in context of this
organisation from almost every state within the US, which accused the firm in downplaying risk
of addiction and marketed the same aggressively. Moreover, the perception of success in minds
of public was very different from the idea of the organisation. This is because, they did not
consider its financial gain as one of the factors for success of the organisation. Furthermore, the
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public acknowledged its unethical practices, along with how the opioid crisis was devastating the
community and was cause of death of so many people, who got addicted to the company's drug.
Furthermore, the firm's wrong and false marketing was also called for, which cost the people
within the country billions of dollars, that led to national public health crisis.
Due to unethical behaviour, the perspective of public became quite negative towards the
company. Moreover, the consistency of the company in context with marketing and selling its
offering sparkled several public protest against the organisation. The current condition in
perspective of the public have worsened for Purdue Pharma, as at least 45 states have filed civil
lawsuits against the organisation, as part of the protests (Purdue Pharma: Oxycontin maker faces
lawsuits from nearly every US state, 2019). This reflects that the organisation's commercial
success and unethical behaviour was not considered as a success, in perspectives of the public,
who believe that wrongful pathway and unethical practices could not be considered elements of
success.
Success from Perspective of Medical Staff
Oxycontin became one of the most prescribed medicine in the US, as Purdue Pharma
targeted several doctors and medical professionals who usually prescribe pain medicines to
individuals. During the initial stages of launching of this drug within the market, usually, several
medical professionals also took active participation of prescribing this drug due to being in high
demand. The motive was to appropriately earn profit, which embarked a routine followed by
medical professionals in context of prescribing opioids (Silberstein, 2015). Furthermore, in
context of medical staff, the firm prescribed the same medicine to be used by staff suffering from
pain, which actively made them dependent on the drug, hence, causing severe addiction towards
opioids. Thus, this led to degradation in their mental health and physical conditions, causing
them other health related problems. However, earlier, while the drug was in such a demand, in
perspective of the professionals, the firm was quite successful by selling such a product to
customers. Moreover, with enhanced financial gain, staff too was getting a raise in their salaries,
which developed a positive perception of them in relation to Purdue Pharma and OxyContin.
However, due to degradation of health of these individuals, along with realising the
ethical framework which the company has been following, the medical staff was very quick to
appropriately realised that the firm was very much deprived from the pathway of success. In
relation to medical professionals, they also realised that this drug has not been quite active for
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patients, which made them deprived from prescribing the same, seeing the active rise in lawsuits
against the organisation. Thus, when the health and safety issues within the company became
evident, perceptions of medical staff dealing with overdoses and doctors became quite negative
in context of Purdue Pharma, leading to an active backlash, which led to diminishing of its social
status. Thus, the human resource management of the organisation was completely against the
legal requirement, as well as, the business practices which they were operating upon.
Furthermore, they were required to comply with several human resource legislations which
would have effectively and essentially protected their employees from such inappropriate
practices.
Success from Perspective of Patients
One of the most affected stakeholders by OxyContin was its patients, who have been
subjected to opioids and its harmful side effects. Since its inception and marketing, the drug has
been widely popular amongst people. Moreover, despite the firm claiming its 24 hour usage, its
weaker shell made the effect lighten in just 12 hours, hence, causing more inappropriateness
when it comes to usage. Furthermore, with repeated usage, it was actually experienced, that
patients were highly addicted to this drug, which led to several consequences before. In addition
to this, after a while, several individuals were admitted to healthcare and rehabilitation centres, to
ensure betterment and improvement in their mental and physical conditions. Thus, the
perspective of patients in context of this drug became quite negative when its ethical working
was finally exposed to the public.
The organisation was willing to sell its drug through its false marketing, where it claimed
the benefits of the overall use of OxyContin and several health benefits which the customers
could experience. However, customers were not educated about the harmful effects, which
caused repeated usage of the medicine as well as enhanced addiction. In addition to this, after
gaining the knowledge, perception of customers towards success of the company shifted
drastically towards the negative end, as they realised that it wasn't ethical for the company to
keep its customers in the dark. Moreover, a feeling of trust was thus, refrained from the minds of
patients after these acknowledgements. In addition, the customers dealing with the over doses
faced several consequences, which led to a lot of inconveniences to them, and cost the firm its
reputation and trust of its customers (Dierksmeier and et. al., 2016).
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All these factors appropriately suggest, that while Purdue Pharma was appropriately and
effectively experienced massive financial gain, they failed to work on ethical framework, which
hence led the company towards its downfall and made its failure quite evident and certain.
CONCLUSION
Thus, it could be concluded from the section above, that unethical practices can cause a
company massive and appropriate financial gain for a period of time, however, could ultimately
lead to a major downfall. Furthermore, being on an unethical work front could cause immense
loss to the company, as they won't be getting enough support from public as well as the service
users at one point of time.
Similarly, in case of Purdue Pharma, the firm with its ineffective marketing was effective
to sell its products and services appropriately, which enhanced its sales figure and profitability.
However, after the health issues and fatality rates in context of the firm's products became
evident and is patent expired, the firm saw a major breakthrough in sales and profit margins and
witnessed loss and bankruptcy. Hence, this case reflects, that even if the firm could gain profits
from unethical working, its still could not be described as unethical, in case it does not follow
ethical norms and practices.
RECOMMENDATION
The OxyContin company used the unethical practices which leads to the crises and
deteriorate its image in front of internal and external stakeholders. Unethical behaviour leads to
negative circumstances under which the creditability of company gets damaged that finally
looses the customers of company (Löfström and et. al., 2015). The business manager along with
skilled team of OxyCotin can prevent the unethical practices in order regain the its image in the
US market. Thus, it include different measure that are explained below:
 Reinforce Consequences that are Associated with Unethical Behaviour:
The business owner need to have knowledge about the consequences of unethical
behaviour, so they need to transfer the necessary information regarding the same to the
employees. As per the case, OxyCotin faces various lawsuits due to the inadequate nad lenient
policy due to which 49,000 people died. So all the Pharma company need to terst all the
medicines and its component before prescription it to the customer.
 Check and Balance:
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It is the responsibility of the top manager to overview the functioning of employees on
regular basis. Such systematic checks is the viable action that can help the company to develop
the new policies in case of any issue. There are many local residence that imposed the case of
unethical ebhaviour in the OxyContin company as due to the mismanagement and lack of
awareness the high dose of opioids changes the market sharaea of company upside down. Thus,
such controlling action can help the company to erdicataion the chances of unethical practices.
 Training and Monitoring:
The manager of OxyContin company should remove all its products from the shelves of
different retailer (Velliaris, Willis and Pierce, 2015). Along with that they need to undergo the
whole test on the basis of which they can conduct the conference and face the public by
accepting their mistake. Moreover, During the orientation period the session should be taken by
the manager where the adequate code of conduct are shared with the new staff. In addition, the
company should overview the performance of their staff on regular basis in order to avoid the
minor mistake which can leads to major impact and hamper others life.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Darmon, M., and et. al., 2016. Formal academic training on ethics may address junior
physicians’ needs. Chest. 150(1). pp.180-187.
Dierksmeier, C., and et. al., 2016. Humanistic ethics in the age of globality. Springer.
Durkin, C. and Gunn, R. eds., 2016. Social entrepreneurship: A skills approach. Policy Press.
Löfström, E., and et. al., 2015. Who teaches academic integrity and how do they teach it?.
Higher Education. 69(3). pp.435-448.
Mullender-Wijnsma, M.J., and et. al., 2016. Physically active math and language lessons
improve academic achievement: a cluster randomized controlled trial. Pediatrics.
137(3). p.e20152743.
Silberstein, S., 2015. Ethics in Activist Scholarship: Media/Policy Analyses of Seattle’s
Homeless Encampment “Sweeps”. In Ethics in Applied Linguistics Research (pp. 218-
236). Routledge.
Velliaris, D.M., Willis, C.R. and Pierce, J.M., 2015. International student perceptions of ethics in
a business pathway course. In New voices in higher education research and scholarship
(pp. 232-250). IGI Global.
Online
Purdue Pharma: Oxycontin maker faces lawsuits from nearly every US state. 2019. [Online]
Available Through: <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/03/purdue-
opioids-lawsuit-oxycontin-california-maine-hawaii>
The Promotion and Marketing of OxyContin: Commercial Triumph, Public Health Tragedy.
2019. [Online] Available Through:
<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2622774/#bib1>
The Sacklers Made More Than $12 Billion In Profit From OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma,
New Report Says. 2019. [Online] Available Through:
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2019/10/04/the-sacklers-made-12-to-13-
billion-in-profit-from-oxycontin-maker-purdue-pharma-new-report-says/
#6d3b6aed477d>
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