CVS Took Secret Payments for “Free Flow of Opioids,” Says NY Times Investigation

CVS Took Secret Payments for “Free Flow of Opioids,” Says NY Times Investigation

CVS is one of the companies implicated in taking “secret” payments from Purdue Pharma in exchange for removing safety restrictions, according to a major investigation released on Tuesday by the New York Times.

According to the Times, as the opioid crisis got worse and the number of Americans who died skyrocketed, Purdue Pharma increased the payments to companies like CVS.

“For years, the benefit managers, or P.B.M.s, took payments from opioid manufacturers, including Purdue Pharma, in return for not restricting the flow of pills. As tens of thousands of Americans overdosed and died from prescription painkillers, the middlemen collected billions of dollars in payments,” wrote the Times.

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

“The details of these backroom deals — laid out in hundreds of documents, some previously confidential, reviewed by The Times — expose a mostly untold chapter of the opioid epidemic and provide a rare look at the modus operandi of the companies at the heart of the prescription drug supply chain,” the Times reported. 

“The P.B.M.s exert extraordinary control over what drugs people can receive and at what price. The three dominant companies — Express Scripts, CVS Caremark and Optum Rx — oversee prescriptions for more than 200 million people and are part of health care conglomerates that sit near the top of the Fortune 500 list,” continued the Times.

This Times report unveils a troubling cycle of secret payments to CVS and other companies' PBMs in exchange for the removal of restrictions on prescriptions.

"The P.B.M.s are hired by insurers and employers to control their drug costs by negotiating discounts with pharmaceutical manufacturers. But a Times investigation this year found that they often pursue their own financial interests in ways that increase costs for patients, employers and government programs, while driving independent pharmacies out of business. Regulators have accused the largest P.B.M.s of anticompetitive practices. The middlemen’s dealings with opioid makers reveal a lesser-known consequence of this pay-to-play system: Seemingly everything — including measures meant to protect patients and curtail abuse — can be up for negotiation," according to the Times.

“Yet time and again, documents show, the P.B.M.s bargained away safeguards in exchange for rebates,” wrote the Times.

“Purdue’s strategy to ensure broad access to its blockbuster painkiller OxyContin was explicit: ‘Offer rebates to remove payer restriction,’ according to an internal presentation. The company didn’t want doctors to have to provide additional justification for prescribing a powerful narcotic, and it didn’t want strict limits on the number of pills that could be dispensed,” according to the Times investigation.

 

Rhode Island Ties Run Deep

CVS, headquartered in Rhode Island and a major employer, repeatedly denied any responsibility for the opioid epidemic and ultimately settled for billions of dollars.

Helena Foulkes, who served as president of CVS during the period in which the payments were made, has been raising money to run for governor in 2026. She lost to Dan McKee in the Democratic primary in 2022 by less than 5,000 votes.

GoLocal reached out to Foulkes for comment on the Times investigation, but she did not respond prior to publication of this article.

 

 

 

 

Former Governor Gina Raimondo and Governor Dan McKee both accepted campaign donations from members of the Sackler family — owners of Purdue Pharma.

When GoLocal raised the issue of the Sacklers' ties to the opioid crisis, McKee’s campaign announced it would donate the funds.

Raimondo refused to donate or return the Sackler monies for more than a year.