McKinsey also estimated how many customers might develop addiction to, or die from, OxyContin. At one point the consultant suggested Purdue pay its drugstore distributors rebates of $14,000 for every addiction and fatal overdose OxyContin caused, to ensure that chains like CVS and others would keep distributing the pill. Under the plan, for example, CVS pharmacies would be paid $36 million in 2019 to offset the 2,400 of its customers that McKinsey estimated would become addicted to, or overdose and die on, OxyContin that year.
