INVESTIGATION: Foulkes Made Tens of Millions at CVS While She Rode Profits From Opioid Epidemic
GoLocalProv News Team
INVESTIGATION: Foulkes Made Tens of Millions at CVS While She Rode Profits From Opioid Epidemic
Foulkes was often the face of CVS, making claims that the company was working to combat the epidemic, but documents, lawsuits, and a range of other sources undercut those claims.
Now, Foulkes is gearing up for a second run for Governor.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTDuring the 2022 campaign, GoLocal twice pressed her on her claims about her role in the opioid epidemic. Foulkes claimed that when she learned of the issue, she took action, but that was not true.
What is true, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings by CVS, is that Foulkes was earning tens of millions of dollars as CVS was pumping out more pills.
Foulkes is a self-proclaimed “math geek” and built her career on developing data-driven initiatives at CVS, like the ExtraCare reward card. She claims that she did not see the opioid epidemic coming. But all the while CVS was pumping out pills for the better part of a decade.
Investigation
GoLocal’s investigation reviewed more than 700 pages of lawsuits, hundreds of pages of SEC filings, CVS and government press releases, twenty media interviews conducted by Foulkes, and dozens of other sources.
As GoLocal reported last month, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a massive lawsuit against CVS, and that 245-page lawsuit unveils information that undercuts Foulkes’ claims. The lawsuit hit the company for years in which Foulkes was president.
Prior to publishing this, GoLocal, over the past few weeks, has reached out to Foulkes and her campaign six times, and on two occasions, they agreed to set a time and then reneged.
While Foulkes and CVS were thriving off the sales of opioids, hundreds of thousands were dying. And families were devasted.
CVS was hooked on the income from opioids.
The money poured into the company.
Foulkes' rise to power mirrors the growth of CVS. The opioid crisis was in full bloom.
“Deaths from prescription opioid overdoses have quadrupled from 1999 to 2011, as have opioid prescriptions, even though pain levels reported by Americans have not changed. By 2013, drug overdoses were the nation’s leading cause of deaths from injury,” cites the USDOJ in its lawsuit against CVS.
“CVS did next to nothing to reduce inappropriate dispensing, instead focusing on the Company’s profitability,” maintains the Justice Department.
In 2013, Foulkes was named President of CVS — she had been with the company for 20 years. In the press release announcing her promotion CEO Larry Merlo said, “More recently Helena has helped bring groundbreaking pharmacy health care programs to market, including Maintenance Choice and Pharmacy Advisor. She has held positions across the enterprise and understands how to meet the needs of both consumers and clients while delivering bottom line results.”
“I am excited to take on this new role and am committed to driving CVS/pharmacy’s continued strong growth. At the same time, I look forward to working closely with our enterprise leadership team to continue to introduce innovations that meet the changing needs of clients, patients and payors while driving growth for CVS Caremark,” said Foulkes.
Amid Foulkes' power at CVS as its President, the CDC says retail opioid prescriptions were dispensed in 2017 at a national rate of 58.7 prescriptions per 100 persons.
SEC filings show that in a four-year period — 2014 to 2017, Foulkes scored more than $21 million.
2014: $6,064,082
2015 $6,065,328
2016 $5,162,183
2017 $4,118,961
During this period, CVS pumped hundreds of millions of opioid pills out. The impact was devastating.
In an interview on GoLocalLIVE in January of 2022, Foulkes blamed Purdue Pharma and made one of the first of many false claims about her knowledge and CVS’s role in the epidemic.
“I’m also really angry. I am angry because Purdue Pharma, in particular, lied to all of us, and that, that really makes me angry. You know, all I can say is that as soon as we saw what was going on, we took action, and I feel very strongly about that,” said Foulkes. She claimed when she learned of the issues tied to the opioid epidemic, she took action. SEE INTERVIEW ABOVE
The DOJ's lawsuit went back ten years, from 2023 back to 2013, and would have gone back earlier if the law allowed.
But Foulkes and the company had seen the issue of the opioid epidemic years earlier. They enjoyed great profits even while they were forced to pay tens of millions in settlement payments to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. It was the cost of doing business.
It is just one example of the failure of CVS's inability or unwillingness to control the improper distribution of opioids when, on March 28, 2013, CVS Pharmacy, Inc. and Oklahoma CVS Pharmacy L.L.C. entered into a settlement with the United States and the DEA to resolve claims that CVS violated the CSA [Controlled Substances Act] by : (1) filling prescriptions for certain prescribers whose DEA registration numbers were not current or valid; (2) entering and maintaining invalid DEA registration numbers on CVS dispensing records for certain prescriptions, which were at times provided to state prescription drug monitoring programs; and (3) entering and maintaining CVS dispensing records including prescription vial labels that identify a non-prescribing provider as the prescribing provider for certain prescriptions.
Dating back to 2006, CVS retail pharmacies in Oklahoma and elsewhere intentionally violated the CSA by filling prescriptions signed by prescribers with invalid DEA registration numbers. In order to fill otherwise illegitimate prescriptions, CVS pharmacists substituted valid DEA registration numbers of non-prescribing practitioners in its records.
DEA also found numerous instances of CVS pharmacists substituting false DEA registration numbers in company computer systems, on paper prescriptions, and even in the information that the pharmacy reported to the State of Oklahoma’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program. CVS agreed to pay a fine of $11,000,000.178
Then, in another case, on September 2, 2014, CVS entered into a settlement with the United States and the DEA to resolve claims against CVS for filling from April 1, 2012 to July 31, 2012, 153 prescriptions at eight different pharmacies, written by Dr. Pedro Garcia during a time period during which his Texas Department of Public Safety Controlled Substances registration was expired. CVS agreed to pay a $1,912,500 fine.
And yet, in another case, in 2015, CVS agreed to pay $22 million to resolve DEA allegations that retail stores in Sanford, Florida, distributed controlled substances, including opioids, based on prescriptions that had not been issued for legitimate medical purposes. Sanford has a population of 53,000, but the supply would support a population of 400,000. According to the DEA, in 2010, a single CVS pharmacy in Sanford, Florida, ordered 1.8 million oxycodone pills, an average of 137,994 pills a month. Other pharmacy customers in Florida averaged 5,364 oxycodone pills a month.
And, there were a multitude of other enforcement actions by DEA against CVS.
“In Manatee County, Medical Examiner Reported in 2017 that Morgue Ran Out of Space for the Bodies of Opioid Overdose Victims”
States across the country were hit hard by the opioid epidemic, and CVS helped to fuel the impact.
“Opioids killed 5,725 Floridians in 2016, and every corner of the State is struggling to deal with the effects. In 2017, the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner estimated that he sometimes dealt with ten overdoses a day. In Manatee County, the Medical Examiner reported in 2017 that the morgue ran out of space for the bodies of opioid overdose victims,” cites the DOJ in its lawsuit against CVS.
“In northern Florida, Jacksonville’s Chief Medical Examiner stated in 2016 that she is unable to take a day off because the morgue is so busy with overdose victims. That year, the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department responded to 3,411 opioid overdoses. Former Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency in Florida on May 3, 2017, as a result of the opioid epidemic,” claims the DOJ.
That year alone, Foulkes made over $4.1 million as CVS’s president.
COMING TOMORROW: Foulkes, CVS and Purdue Pharma