Insys Founder Gets 5½ Years in Prison in Opioid Kickback Scheme

Doctors were urged to write prescriptions for a much wider pool or patients, and to mislead insurance companies so they would pay for the expensive medication.

In court Thursday, Mr. Kapoor said he had created the company in part because he witnessed the suffering of his wife, who had died of cancer. “I wanted to believe in Subsys perhaps too much,” he said. “I never wanted Subsys to be prescribed to patients who did not need it.”

Judge Allison D. Burroughs of Federal District Court in Boston also sentenced other former Insys executives this week for their roles in the scheme. They included the former vice president of sales, Alec Burlakoff, 46, of West Palm Beach, Fla., who was sentenced Thursday to 26 months in prison and three years of supervised release.

In November 2018, Mr. Burlakoff — who once so enthusiastically peddled the product that he dressed in a Subsys costume as part of a promotional rap video — pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering conspiracy and agreed to cooperate with the government.

On Wednesday, the judge sentenced the company’s former chief executive, Michael L. Babich, 43, of Scottsdale, Ariz., to 30 months in prison and three years of supervised release. In January 2019, Mr. Babich pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud and one count of mail fraud, and agreed to cooperate with the government.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/health/opioids-insys-kapoor-prison.html?emc=rss&partner=rss