BOSTON, MA - As the lawsuit against Purdue Pharma unfolds, the management consultancy McKinsey & Company is yet again drawn into the spotlight over their role in advising the maker of OxyContin during the nation’s devastating opioid crisis. McKinsey has responded to their involvement by saying that all their friends and other firms were doing it, too, and that they just didn’t want to be left out.
According to sources present, at the 2007 management consulting convention in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, partners in McKinsey’s biotech and pharmaceuticals practice saw members from other firms congregating behind the bleachers. “They were talking ‘bout how cool it was pushing doctors to over-prescribe dangerously addictive opioids,” protests Tim Kirkpatrick, a partner who did not wish to be named in this story, “So we met up with the Sacklers later just to try [lobbying pharmacies to lower safeguards against illegal prescriptions]. And then it felt so good.”
When asked to comment about the lawsuit, current spokesperson for McKinsey, Diana Collins, downplayed their involvement. “We just wanted to be cool, and it’s like no big deal; Bain was right next door at GSK pushing Vicodin, and I heard that Deloitte’s older brother even sold fentanyl when he was in California last summer.”
“So just quit it already, jeez. It’s not like our shareholders are losing any money over it or anything.”
This latest scandal is only one of a litany of allegation plaguing the firm, including hiding coal interests, bolstering authoritarian governments in Asia, bribing oligarchs, and potentially killing The Man They Called Christ.