This article was produced in partnership with The Philadelphia Inquirer, which was a member of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in 2020-21. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.
Reporting Highlights
- Delayed Justice: After a whistleblower exposed the criminal behavior of Endo, a drug manufacturer, the Justice Department waited more than a decade to bring charges against the company.
- A Steep Discount: Federal agencies said Endo owed up to $7 billion in criminal fines, back taxes and other charges. The government settled this year for just $200 million.
- Winners and Losers: Endo is still selling narcotics. Lawyers made $350 million. A few executives shared $95 million in bonuses. Thousands of opioid victims are to share $40 million.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
This spring, the Justice Department announced a major victory against a drug firm that manufactured billions of opioid painkillers. Endo Health Solutions, the agency said, would face $1.5 billion in fines and forfeitures and plead guilty to a corporate criminal charge.
Prosecutors said the massive fine would hold accountable a suburban Philadelphia company that profited by “misrepresenting the safety of their opioid products and using reckless marketing tactics to increase sales.”
