McKinsey & Co. is facing a class-action lawsuit from the B.C. government, which Ottawa plans to join, placing the Liberal government at odds with the firm it has relied on for more than $100-million in contract work since 2015
Global consulting giant McKinsey & Co., under the leadership of Dominic Barton, pitched Purdue Pharma in 2014 on how it could more aggressively market and boost sales of OxyContin and other highly addictive opioids to Canadians, according to a confidential memo obtained by The Globe and Mail.
The memo to Purdue Pharma president Craig Landau went on to say McKinsey was seeking to identify three to five near-term “revenue acceleration activities” for the 2014-2015 period. In an October, 2013, e-mail from then-McKinsey consultant Pasha Sarraf to a colleague, he explained that he had spoken to Mr. Landau, who was seeking advice, and noted Purdue is “getting hammered on market access to Oxycontin NEO.” OxyNEO had recently been introduced to the Canadian market and was a reformulated version of OxyContin where the pills are harder to crush – making it more difficult to abuse the drug by chewing, injecting or snorting it.
Mr. Barton told The Globe in 2021 that it was personally upsetting to learn McKinsey was providing advice to Purdue Pharma on tactics to drive sales of OxyContin, and that he understands the damage caused by opioid misuse.More than 34,000 Canadians have died from opioids between January, 2016, and September, 2022, according to federal government data.
Purdue is just one of more than 40 pharmaceutical companies that B.C. is pursuing in a separate class action. An application to have that lawsuit certified will be before the B.C. Supreme Court this fall. The federal Addictions Minister’s office told The Globe that Ottawa also intendsMcKinsey has rejected the allegations against it via court documents filed in February of this year. The company says the plaintiff – the B.C.
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