STAMFORD — On June 22, 2017, Dr. Craig Landau was appointed CEO and president of an under-fire Purdue Pharma. The pressure on him and the company has only escalated since then.
Landau took the top job amid a nationwide push for accountability for the opioid crisis that has unleashed a storm of litigation and grassroots unrest against the OxyContin maker. Two years on, the controversy shows no signs of abating, but the chief executive — who seldom speaks publicly beyond company-issued statements — said this week that he remains committed to leading the fast-changing firm.
“My first two years as CEO have been exceedingly challenging, but, at the same time, rewarding,” Landau said, in an e-mailed response to questions from Hearst Connecticut Media. “As a physician, my top priority has been to identify and pursue opportunities for our company to help address the opioid crisis. Simultaneously, I have been focused on making changes to the business that would allow us to pursue more non-opioid opportunities today and in the longer term.”
The company declined to make Landau available for an interview.
Messages left this week for a spokesperson for the Sackler family members who own Purdue were not returned.
Nationwide legal pressure
Now 52, Landau took over after previously serving as the president and CEO of Purdue’s Canadian business and as the company’s chief medical officer. He has worked at Purdue since 1999 and also served 14 years in the U.S. Army.
When he became CEO, Purdue was facing a new wave of local and state lawsuits alleging that fraudulent OxyContin marketing had exacerbated the country’s epidemic of opioid abuse. Some 218,000 Americans died from overdoses related to prescription opioids, between 1999 and 2017, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Two years later, the company is flooded with litigation. Today, 46 states, including Connecticut, are pursuing complaints, in addition to hundreds filed by cities and counties.
About 1,800 local governments’ lawsuits against Purdue and other opioid makers have been consolidated in a “multidistrict litigation” process in federal court in Cleveland. The first MDL trial is scheduled to start Oct. 21.
The complaints largely focus on accusations that predate Landau’s arrival as CEO. Many of them, such as Connecticut’s, name as defendants eight Sackler family members who own the company.
But some of the lawsuits also implicate Landau.
When he was the chief medical officer, Landau helped to develop the company’s sales strategy and materials, according to Massachusetts’ complaint. Since becoming CEO, he has overseen more than 5,000 visits by Purdue sales representatives to prescribers in the state, the lawsuit also said.
Among other allegations, Massachusetts said that Landau drafted goals in 2011 that included supporting the approval of OxyContin for children.
Purdue and the Sacklers have denied the allegations, and they have filed motions to dismiss the Massachusetts complaint.
Landau declined to comment on the pending lawsuits.
Under his leadership, the company has shown a willingness to settle.
In the firm’s largest payout of the past 10 years, it reached a $270 million agreement in March with Oklahoma to resolve that state’s lawsuit.
“The company has been fairly strategic in dealing with the lawsuits; I think they’re waiting to see how things turn out with the MDL litigation,” said Richard Ausness, a law professor at the University of Kentucky. “I think Landau has done about the best you can expect with the lawsuits, given the circumstances.”
A Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing could materialize before the lawsuits are sorted out, according to a number of experts. The company has acknowledged exploring such a scenario in recent months — a move that would ostensibly help contain its liability.
“Purdue continues to assess all options, but it is important to note that the company has not made any decisions regarding this matter,” Landau said.
Earlier this month, another much-litigated opioid maker, Insys, filed for bankruptcy, days after agreeing to a $225 million settlement of federal criminal and civil cases alleging the company bribed doctors to prescribe its fentanyl-based pain drug.
“For Purdue, there are just too many lawsuits,” said Eric Snyder, chairman of the bankruptcy department at Manhattan-based law firm Wilk Auslander. “I don’t think they have enough time and money to defend the lawsuits and keep the business going.”
Under-fire outside the courts
Amid the glut of allegations of wrongdoing, Purdue officials maintain that the company has worked diligently to combat the epidemic of opioid abuse.
In the past 20 years, the firm said it has partnered with law enforcement and other government agencies to advance more than 60 initiatives, costing a total of more than $1.5 billion, according to company data.
“We are laser-focused on doing what is right to help society address the opioid-addiction crisis — including increasing access to naloxone,” a drug that can reverse opioid overdoses, and “developing more potent and longer-lasting overdose rescue options, funding youth education and more,” Landau said.
But those efforts have hardly quelled the criticism in or out of the courtrooms.
Last summer, a number of protests took place outside Purdue’s downtown headquarters.
“What I would like (Landau) to focus on — is their role in this epidemic and paying retribution for treatment, prevention and recovery support; and monies to pay for our children’s burials that we weren’t prepared to pay and support for the children left behind,” said Cheryl Juaire, a co-organizer of a demonstration last August and whose 23-year-old son died of a heroin overdose in 2011. “In all of these settlements and lawsuits, I have seen nothing in support of the children left behind” by parents who fatally overdose.
Meanwhile, a number of corporate partners have distanced themselves, apparently fretful about the fallout from doing business with the company. The list includes JPMorgan Chase & Co., the country’s largest bank by assets, which had handled cash and bill payments for Purdue.
Major shifts
As the outrage persists over the company’s alleged role in the opioid crisis, Purdue has undergone sweeping organizational changes in the past two years.
Last year, it stopped marketing its opioids to medical prescribers and disbanded its sales force. The sales team’s demise resulted in hundreds of layoffs.
“While this change was extremely difficult for those affected, ultimately, it was the right thing to do,” Landau said of the end of the opioid marketing.
The sales group was dissolved amid medical prescribers’ growing wariness of opioids and increasing competition from generic drugs. OxyContin sales totaled $1.8 billion in 2017, down from $2.8 billion five years earlier, according to data from health care analytics company Symphony Health Solutions.
Purdue is not abandoning opioids — Landau cited Pain Medicine journal data showing that nearly 18 million U.S. patients are taking long-term prescription opioids — but the company is increasingly focusing on other drug types.
A new Purdue subsidiary gained U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in March for a drug called Adhansia XR, to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Around the same time, another new Purdue subsidiary secured the FDA’s “orphan drug designation” for expedited reviews of drugs to, respectively, treat rare bile-duct cancer and an extremely rare type of leukemia.
Also in March, Purdue announced an FDA fast-track designation for a “nalmefene hydrochloride” injection that would treat known or suspected opioid overdoses. The company said it would not profit from that medication.
“Diversifying the product line is a smart thing to do,” said Angela Mattie, a professor in Quinnipiac University’s schools of business and medicine. “But, in trying to improve the reputation of the company, the train has left the station on that one. The public opinion of the company is a cry for accountability and further complicated by the pending legal cases.”
Looking ahead
As he enters his third year, Landau’s agenda will probably continue to be dominated by the litigation until it is resolved by trials or settlements.
Landau’s relationship with the Sacklers is more difficult to discern. In his responses to Hearst Connecticut Media, he did not comment on his interactions with the owners.
All of the Sacklers have left the board in the past two years — with the last of them stepping down around the turn of the year. But they still own the company and likely still have the last word on executive personnel decisions.
In the first interview given by one of the Sackler defendants since they were named in the current round of lawsuits, David Sackler — a grandson of Purdue’s late co-founder Raymond Sackler and a former board member — said in a Vanity Fair profile published this week that his family should not be blamed for the opioid catastrophe. He did not mention Landau.
At the same time, Landau said that he wants to continue tackling the opioid crisis and developing new Purdue products, focusing on non-opioid pain medications, central-nervous-system treatments and oncological projects.
“I’m personally very excited about the prospects for our pipeline, as well as for the company, on the whole, going forward,” Landau said. “Those that work for Purdue are committed to seeing it through, so that, through our medicines, patients in need can receive the benefit they deserve.”