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# 5 Former Insys Execs Convicted in Fentanyl Case
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/5-former-insys-execs-convicted-in-fentanyl-case/
- Published: 2019-05-03T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-15T01:24:25.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5144028

Insys Therapeutics’s founder and four former executives have been convicted by a federal jury in Boston on charges they bribed health professionals to prescribe Subsys, a highly-addictive sublingual fentanyl spray intended for cancer patients experiencing breakthrough pain, and for defrauding Medicare and private insurance carriers. Insys founder **John N. Kapoor** of Phoenix, AZ, former sales director **Richard M. Simon** of Seal Beach, CA, former regional sales director **Sunrise Lee** of Bryant City, MI, former sales director **Joseph A. Rowan** of Panama City, FL, and former vice president **Michael J. Gurry** of Scottsdale, AZ were convicted on conspiracy charges. Sentencing dates have not yet been set.

The government [alleged](https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/founder-and-four-executives-insys-therapeutics-convicted-racketeering-conspiracy?ref=fdaweb.com) that from 5/2012 to 12/2016, the defendants conspired to bribe practitioners, many of whom operated pain clinics, in order to induce them to prescribe Subsys to patients, often when medically unnecessary. The defendants used pharmacy data to identify practitioners who either prescribed unusually high volumes of rapid-onset opioids, or had demonstrated a capacity to do so, and bribed and provided kickbacks to the practitioners to increase the number of new Subsys prescriptions, and to increase the dosage and number of units.