Insys Replaces Its CEO as Opioid Past Weighs on Drugmaker

(Bloomberg) -- Insys Therapeutics Inc. has replaced Chief Executive Officer Saeed Motahari as it deals with ongoing costs from a criminal trial of several former senior executives related to the company’s promotion of a powerful opioid drug.

Motahari will be replaced by Chief Financial Officer Andrew Long effective immediately, the company said in a statement. “We believe that now is the right time to transition leadership,” said board Chairman Steven Meyer.

Long has served as an executive at Abbott Laboratories Inc. and Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. He joined Insys in August 2017. The Chandler, Arizona-based company’s shares fell 6.8 percent to $4.27 at 9:34 a.m. in New York.

Insys shares are down 90 percent since their 2015 peak, when questions arose about its aggressive promotion of Subsys, a powerful opioid painkiller that’s administered with through a mouth spray. Ex-CEO John Kapoor is facing federal criminal charges in Boston, along with several other former employees, that he bribed doctors and duped insurers into prescribing and paying for the drug. A verdict is expected any day.

Insys is trying to move away from its opioid past and transition into a developer of cannabinoid-based drugs and spray technologies. It has paid tens of millions of dollars to fund Kapoor’s legal defense under an indemnification agreement, and warned in March that those expenses could endanger its ability to continue as a going concern.

Motahari joined Insys from Purdue Pharma Inc. in 2017. Purdue is facing hundreds of lawsuits from states, cities and counties over its alleged role in the U.S. opioid epidemic.

--With assistance from Riley Griffin.

To contact the reporter on this story: Drew Armstrong in New York at darmstrong17@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Drew Armstrong at darmstrong17@bloomberg.net, Mark Schoifet

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