While pharmaceutical companies mass-market the synthetic opioid fentanyl, lawmakers continue to grease the opioid pipeline.
Opioids, Inc. is a gripping investigative documentary that exposes how one man’s ambition turned a breakthrough cancer pain treatment into a vehicle of mass addiction and corporate greed. At the heart of the story is billionaire entrepreneur John Kapoor, founder of Insys Therapeutics, who introduced Subsys, a fentanyl-based spray up to 100 times stronger than morphine. Marketed as a solution for late-stage cancer pain, Subsys quickly became the center of a nationwide scandal.
Through exclusive interviews, whistleblower testimony, and rare footage, the film reveals how Kapoor and his team built a ruthless sales machine that used bribery, deception, and insurance fraud to push the drug beyond its intended use. Doctors were incentivized with lavish payments, speaker fees, and personal perks. Sales reps with no pharmaceutical training were told to get results “by any means necessary.”
As Subsys prescriptions soared, so did patient overdoses and deaths. Federal investigations uncovered forged signatures, fake diagnoses, and a company culture driven by profit at all costs. In a historic legal case, John Kapoor became the first pharmaceutical CEO convicted under U.S. racketeering laws.
This shocking true story is a searing indictment of Big Pharma's darkest corners, and a sobering look at how profit motives can destroy lives.
Original Title : Opioids, Inc.
Director : Thomas Jennings
Cast : Nathaniel Yeager, Roddy Boyd, Gillian Tett
Episode aired May 11, 2021