BOSTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) – U.S. consulting firm McKinsey agreed on Friday to pay $650 million (619 million euros) to drop federal charges against it for its role in the state opioid crisis -United.
McKinsey is accused of having advised the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma on ways to increase sales of its treatment OxyContin, an addictive painkiller, by conspiring with the laboratory to distort communication around the drug.
The firm entered into a so-called deferred prosecution agreement on Friday in federal court in Abingdon, Virginia, which will exempt it from criminal charges after a five-year supervision period, provided it fulfills its commitments.
In a statement, McKinsey said it had stopped providing advice to opioid-related companies since 2019, adding that this past work “will always be a source of deep regret for [la]firm”.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 727,000 people died from opioid overdoses in the United States between 1999 and 2022.
McKinsey has already paid about $1 billion to close other lawsuits in the matter.
(Nate Raymond, Mike Spector, Jean-Stéphane Brosse for the )
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