Still in the black –
February 26, 2020 – In January 2009, Victor Borelli, a Mallinckrodt salesman, exchanged emails with Steve Cochrane, who worked at drug distributor KeySource. “Keep them coming,” Cochrane wrote. “Flying out of here. It’s like people are addicted to these things or something. Oh, wait, people are.”
Borelli responded: “Just like Doritos. Keep eating, we’ll make more.” After the comment become public, the company disavowed it, calling it “callous.”
Borelli said that as a reward for sales, he got bonuses ranging from $101,000 to $119,000 from 2008 through 2010, and that he twice received the company’s President Club award. That scored him vacations to St. Thomas and other tropical getaways.
Borelli and other Mallinckrodt employees answered lawyers’ questions under oath ahead of what was expected to be the first federal trial over the toll of opioids. The company ended up settling with the plaintiffs — the Ohio counties of Cuyahoga and Summit. Other major defendants also reached deals.
Another opioid trial is scheduled to begin next month in Central Islip, New York, which has created a renewed push among drugmakers and distributors to settle thousands of opioid-related lawsuits.
Mallinckrodt agreed with lawyers suing on behalf of local governments nationwide to pay its settlement amount over eight years. Most of the money is to go into a fund intended for drug treatment and other programs to aid recovery from an epidemic that has been linked to more than 430,000 deaths in the U.S. since 2000.
