Purdue Pharma's Programs to Reduce Illegal Trafficking
and Abuse of Prescription Medications
The illegal trafficking (or diversion) and abuse of prescription medicines is a serious public health problem in the United States. Purdue Pharma L.P. is working proactively with healthcare professionals, law enforcement and local communities to help curb diversion and abuse of medications, while making sure they remain available for appropriate medical use. The Company has developed an array of programs focused on education, prevention and deterrence.
- EDUCATING HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS ABOUT PROPER PAIN MANAGEMENT, DIVERSION AND ABUSE
Purdue Pharma supports non-promotional educational programs to teach healthcare professionals how to properly assess and treat patients suffering from pain as well as how to recognize and deter common methods used to unlawfully obtain and abuse prescription medications. The Company offers an array of education resources, including live speaker programs, internet-based learning sessions, faculty tools and resources, and grants to healthcare professional societies and associations, hospitals, and other healthcare organizations. Key initiatives include educational series on pain management from the American Medical Association and the American Osteopathic Association as well as the Urine Drug Testing in Clinical Practice monograph. More than 100,000 resources from the Company's Medical Education Resource Catalog have been requested and received by thousands of healthcare professionals.
- COMBATING PRESCRIPTION FRAUD AND PHARMACY THEFT
In response to a reported increase in pharmacy robberies, Purdue developed RxPATROL® (Pattern Analysis Tracking Robberies and Other Losses), an online information clearinghouse designed to collect, analyze, and share information on pharmacy robberies, burglaries and theft of controlled substances. RxPATROL is intended to help pharmacists guard against pharmacy theft, and assist law enforcement efforts in apprehending and prosecuting pharmacy theft suspects. A number of organizations have partnered with Purdue to support this program, including the National Community Pharmacists Association, National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators, the Healthcare Distribution Management Association, the FBI Law Enforcement Executive Development Association, and the Pharmaceutical Security Institute. (http://www.rxpatrol.org/) (Learn more)
In 2005, Purdue partnered with Crime Stoppers, a network of municipal anti-crime organizations, to offer cash rewards for information that can help law enforcement investigate and solve pharmacy-related crimes. As of March 31, 2008, this effort has led to the arrest of more than 75 pharmacy theft suspects.
- BUILDING COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS TO COMBAT PRESCRIPTION DRUG ABUSE
Purdue Pharma created the PAINFULLY OBVIOUS® program as part of a public service campaign to raise awareness and educate parents, teachers, and students about the dangers of abusing prescription medicines. Prior to this initiative, there was no national program to specifically address the abuse of prescription medicines among teens and pre-teens. The Painfully Obvious materials are distributed at no charge to state and community-based organizations for use in their outreach efforts to address prescription drug abuse. The materials can also be downloaded at www.painfullyobvious.com.
Purdue Pharma has supported the Partnership for a Drug Free America's efforts to reduce substance abuse. With funding from Purdue, the Partnership, in 2005, began tracking teen attitudes about prescription drugs through its Partnership Attitude Tracking Study. The 2005 study found that prescription drug abuse by teens may stem in part from the availability of medications in the home, a lack of the stigma commonly associated with illicit street drugs and a mistaken belief that medications are safer to use recreationally. The results suggest that further awareness and education is needed to help adults safeguard medications in their homes as well as teach teenagers that prescription drug abuse is still drug abuse and can be dangerous and even fatal.
With funding and support from Purdue, the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CACDA) has developed a "Strategizer" and "Tool Kit" to help their constituent community organizations address prescription drug abuse. These resources have been provided to 5000 CACDA member organizations around the country and are also available from Purdue.
Purdue Pharma has also partnered with a number of community coalitions to implement Communities That Care® (CTC), a science-based prevention process designed to help communities support the healthy development of youth by reducing problem behaviors. This process has been proven to reduce problem behaviors in youth, including substance abuse, teen pregnancy, delinquency, school dropout and violence. In 2005, the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration acquired the copyright to the Communities That Care materials and added the CTC planning system to the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention's Prevention Platform.
- DISTRIBUTING MEDICAL PRACTICE GUIDELINES AND RESOURCES
Purdue Pharma regularly provides healthcare professionals with important information about the proper prescribing of opioid analgesics. Since 1998, Purdue's representatives have distributed more than one million copies of medical guidelines on the proper use of controlled substances published by the Federation of State Medical Boards, American Pain Society, and numerous federal and state health agencies. These materials emphasize the need to properly evaluate patients, help teach physicians about proper documentation, and alert healthcare professionals to the possibilities of abuse and diversion. Purdue representatives have reviewed these materials in depth with tens of thousands of prescribers. Since 1996, Purdue Pharma representatives have also distributed more than 475,000 opioid therapy documentation kits to medical professionals, and educated them on the proper use of these assessment and documentation tools.
Purdue Pharma has also developed an array of educational brochures and materials that help healthcare professionals and patients recognize and prevent abuse and diversion of prescription medicines. More than 820,000 brochures have been distributed to physicians and 700,000 brochures have been distributed to pharmacists nationwide by mail and by Purdue field representatives.
- SUPPORTING EFFECTIVE PRESCRIPTION MONITORING PROGRAMS
"Doctor Shopping" - the practice of misleading several prescribers in order to obtain multiple, improper prescriptions - is a common form of drug diversion. Purdue Pharma is supporting the development of state prescription monitoring programs (PMPs) to help prescribers, pharmacists and law enforcement detect and prevent diversion of prescription medicines in numerous states. In doing do, the Company has worked to help ensure that these state-based programs are designed to be effective, do not impede patient care, ensure privacy, and protect practitioners from inappropriate interference. To date, numerous states have enacted legislation to implement a prescription monitoring program and additional states are considering such legislation.
- WORKING WITH LAW ENFORCEMENT
Many state and local law enforcement organizations do not have sufficient expertise or resources to effectively investigate prescription drug diversion. Since 2001, Purdue's law enforcement liaison and education program has helped state, county, and municipal law enforcement groups enhance their drug diversion investigations. Part of this effort includes educational programs by drug diversion experts to help law enforcement gain a better understanding of appropriate pain management practices versus inappropriate prescribing and mis-use of controlled substances. Purdue Pharma works with a number of law enforcement and regulatory groups in this effort, including the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators and the National Association of State Controlled Substance Authorities.
- COMBATING CROSS-BORDER SMUGGLING, COUNTERFEITING, AND ROGUE INTERNET PHARMACIES
The company has taken significant steps to thwart diversion of its product from Latin America and Canada to the United States. Purdue changed the markings, known as indicia, on tablets distributed in Latin America and Canada to assist law enforcement in determining the country of origin in medication seized within the United States.
The Company is also helping regulatory and law enforcement groups to combat the growing problems of prescription drug counterfeiting, and the distribution of controlled substances through rogue Internet pharmacies. Purdue's laboratories have conducted analysis of product seized by law enforcement to determine the chemical fingerprint. Understanding the composition of counterfeit or adulterated product can help law enforcement more effectively track down and prosecute drug counterfeiters and traffickers.
- UNDERSTANDING THE SCOPE OF PRESCRIPTION DRUG ABUSE
Purdue Pharma established the RADARS® (Researched Abuse, Diversion, and Addiction-Related Surveillance) System in 2001 to study the prevalence and nature of abuse and diversion of commonly prescribed prescription pain medicines. This research-based initiative is overseen by an independent panel of experts and is designed to obtain valuable information on the relative rates of abuse, addiction, and diversion of eight controlled prescription medications (buprenorphine, fentanyl, hydrocodone, hydromorphone, methadone, morphine, oxycodone and tramadol). The RADARS® System complements existing publicly available monitoring systems, and is the first effort to study the abuse and diversion of multiple pain medicines on a national scale, and is designed to gather data in a more timely fashion with better geographic localization than current publicly accessible databases. In 2006, Purdue transferred ownership of the RADARS System to the not-for-profit Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center to encourage other pharmaceutical companies and government agencies to gain access to these valuable data.
- DEVELOPING TAMPER-RESISTANT DRUG FORMULATIONS
For more than a decade, Purdue has been working to develop and test new forms of pain medications that will 1) provide safe and effective pain relief to patients with pain and 2) will be less desirable to drug abusers. Drug research and development takes years to complete, and results cannot be guaranteed. Furthermore, all medications are susceptible to abuse in one manner or another, and it may not be possible to develop a product that completely deters determined abusers.
- SECURING THE DISTRIBUTION CHAIN
After prescription medications leave the manufacturing facility, they typically pass through a number of wholesale and retail drug distributors before ultimately reaching the local pharmacy or hospital. While shipping and handling of controlled substances is conducted under secure conditions, every step along this pharmaceutical supply chain presents an opportunity for diversion by criminals. Purdue has gone to great lengths to protect the pharmaceutical supply chain by introducing innovative security measures in its manufacturing facilities as well as throughout the drug distribution channels.
In 2004, as part of a pilot program with certain customers, Purdue became the first pharmaceutical company to tag individual bottles of medication with small electromagnetic chips known as radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. RFID allows pharmaceutical manufacturers and wholesale distributors to closely track products as they move throughout the distribution chain. Purdue is in the process of expanding this program to tag all bottles, cases and pallets of medication. The company also employs Global Positioning Satellites (GPS) and ground-based surveillance to track shipments of pharmaceutical products once they leave the manufacturing site.
Solving the longstanding problems of diversion and abuse of prescription medications will require the cooperation of many elements of our society - healthcare professionals, law enforcement, educators and parents, social service providers, state and federal government, and the pharmaceutical industry. Purdue Pharma is taking the lead within the pharmaceutical industry in addressing this critical social problem.
For more information contact:
James W. Heins
Senior Director, Public Affairs
Purdue Pharma L.P.
(203) 588-8069
james.heins@pharma.com
www.purduepharma.com
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