A big pharma billionaire finally got “got”

Billionaire big pharma founder arrested for bribing doctors to prescribe fentanyl

Yesterday, the US Department of Justice arrested 6 former execs and managers of pharmaceutical giant Insys, for “paying doctors to needlessly prescribe an extremely dangerous and addictive form of fentanyl” — a drug only recommended for extreme pain in cancer patients.

Among those arrested was John Kapoor, the company’s 74-year-old founder worth $2.1B, who stepped down as CEO back in January but remains Insys’ majority shareholder.

Apparently, he’s also a major player in the US opioid epidemic

Subsys, Insys’ brand-name fentanyl spray, is the fastest-acting form of the product, and “80 times more potent than morphine,” and Insys has been making a killing on it.

The company’s stock rose 296% in the 3 years after their 2013 IPO. But the number of fentanyl overdoses in the US spiked 540% in that same timeframe — accounting for over 20k deaths in 2016.

And, according to the federal indictment, Insys has stopped at nothing to prescribe it to as many patients as possible.

Including bribing doctors to promote and prescribe fentanyl

The indictment alleges that Insys was able to cover up its bribes paying doctors “speaker fees” to appear at promotional events for Subsys.

Former CEO Michael Babich is said to have tracked doctors’ “return on investment,” based on how much they were paid, how many prescriptions they wrote, and how much money Insys made off them.

According to the DOJ, Kapoor and his cohort also “conspired to mislead and defraud health insurance providers who were reluctant to approve payment for [Subsys].”

Charges against the execs include racketeering, wire fraud, and mail fraud — each with penalties of up to 25 years in prison.

FINALLY, these guys are getting caught

Sadly, execs of big pharma companies, while often accused of fueling the opioid crisis, rarely see punishment.

As for Kapoor? In his mind, Subsys is just a “small part” of the problem — Insys says super-potent fentanyl is “only” prescribed 130k times a year, and according to his lawyer, he “intends to fight these charges vigorously.”

Twitter’s stock jumps 18% as it inches closer to its first profitable quarter

Twitter’s stock shot up more than 18% on Thursday after a rare, positive investor call, where they announced quarterly earnings much higher than expected ($590m actually vs. $586.7m expected).

While their quarterly revenue was still down 4% from last year, they managed to cushion their losses with an $87m uptick in data licensing revenue — cutting their Q3 losses to only $21m.

In other words… they might have a profitable Q4. *GASP*

How’d they do it?

Despite recently admitting to inadvertently overcounting their active users since 2014, they did add 4m users in Q3, putting their correct total to 330m monthly users, which is huge.

And aside from growing their audience, the company’s CEO Jack Dorsey credited their progress to signing a “significant number” of enterprise deals and achieving record profitability ($0.10 earnings per share — nearly double analysts’ predictions).

So what do they have to do to finally have a profitable quarter?

After cutting expenses and loading up on deals to sell its data to outside companies, Twitter’s says their next move is to lower their dependence on ad revenue.

And, as long as they keep exceeding their investor’s (fairly moderate) expectations like they did in Q3, they should be well on their way.

Severely understaffed, The National Weather Service is feeling the heat

In the midst of a tumultuous 2017 that has seen $16B worth of natural disasters, the nation’s chief weather agency, the National Weather Service, is “teetering on the brink of failure.”

According to the Washington Post, the federal agency responsible for providing forecasts and warning of dangerous weather is facing severe understaffing issues that are threatening to compromise its coverage.

Cloudy, with a chance of overtime

Over the past 2 years, the agency has seen a 57% increase in staff vacancies — and for current NWS workers, life’s not great right now.

“Some people have been denied vacations, because there are not enough bodies to fill shifts,” one employee told the Post. “I, myself, worked a 15-hour day about a week ago. You get a lot less sleep. You start to wonder if you’re safe on the road. You don’t see your loved ones…”

Yikes. What’s up?

In recent years, the NWS staff has been crimped by numerous hiring freezes, administration changes, and budget limitations.

In 2012, the agency was so desperate for funding that they shifted around money internally without the approval of Congress, leading to a widely-covered payroll scandal.

And all of this is starting to take a toll on the weather information we’re receiving: unless things change, they’ll have to start cutting corners on their reporting to compensate.

The art of naming a company in China — so people don’t think it’s a brothel

Earlier this year, McDonald’s sold control of its 2.5k Chinese locations to a state-run conglomerate for $2B.

Now, the fast food chain has officially changed its Chinese business name from Maidanglao (a literal translation of “McDonald’s”) to Jingongmen — or, “Golden Arches.”

A seemingly simple change, but as it turns out, renaming a giant foreign company in China is a complex and nuanced art form.

Tricky business

In China, some Western words have dramatically different meanings when directly translated. Even when a brand translates appropriately, it may prove difficult to pronounce in Mandarin or Cantonese, and selecting the right name is a whole business in itself.

As a result, some brands opt for more simple and literal names that latch positive connotations to their products — which has led to some rather unusual product names…

Like Coca-Cola’s Chinese rebrand to Ke kou ke le

Or, in English, “tasty and fun.” Some other classics include:

• Tide: Taizi (“gets rid of dirt”)
• Colgate: Gao lu jie (“revealing superior cleanliness”)
• Nike: Nai ke (“enduring and persevering”)
• Marriott: Wan hao (“10,000 wealthy elites”)
• Heineken: Xi li (“happiness power”)

These rebrands struck a balance between phonetic similarity and connotation, but others haven’t been so lucky: like when Airbnb rebranded to Aibiying (“welcome each other with love”), and Chinese citizens assumed it was a brothel.

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