Wells Tower, the screenwriter of Netflix’s Pain Hustlers, based his script on the 2022 nonfiction book Pain Hustlers: Crime and Punishment at an Opioid Startup by Evan Hughes, but he changed the names of the people involved, including John Kapoor, and altered the story to make it his own. Andy Garcia plays Dr. Jack Neel, the principal investor of the fictional corrupt pharmaceutical company Zanna, in the 2023 Netflix crime drama film. Dr. Jack Neel is loosely based on John Kapoor, the founder and former CEO of Insys Therapeutics, the company Zanna is inspired by in the movie. Like Neel, Kapoor ran into some legal trouble following his criminal activities related to selling opioids.
As mentioned above, Pain Hustlers revolves around Insys Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical group that was at the center of an opioid scandal in late 2016. The company sold Subsys, a liquid form of fentanyl that was used to treat breakthrough pain in cancer patients and found to be highly addictive. However, Insys Therapeutics executives utilized their power to bribe medical practitioners to prescribe Subsys to those who did not need it, just as Zanna did with their opioid, Lonafen, in the 2023 Netflix film.
John Kapoor Was Convicted Of A Racketeering Conspiracy In 2019 & Sentenced To 66 Months In Prison
The real-life Dr. Jack Neel from Pain Hustlers, John Kapoor, founded Insys Therapeutics in 1990, and the company launched its opioid, Subsys, in 2012. However, the pharmaceutical group used illegal practices to sell the drug (bribery and misleading advertising), and it wouldn’t be much longer after its launch that the company came under fire for its unorthodox methods. Kapoor and six other Insys executives and managers were arrested in late 2016 and charged with conspiracy to bribe medical personnel to prescribe Subsys to their patients even if they didn’t need it.
Kapoor was arrested again in October 2017 and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, RICO conspiracy, and conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Law. Almost two years later, in May 2019, Kapoor was convicted of the racketeering conspiracy. The former Insys Therapeutics CEO’s sentencing hearing came in January 2020, and he was sentenced to 66 months, or five and a half years, in prison, just like Dr. Jack Neel in Pain Hustlers‘ ending. However, the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the start of his sentence, so Kapoor didn’t go to prison until mid-2021.
John Kapoor Was Released From Prison After Only 2 Years In June 2023
John Kapoor ultimately only served two years of his original sentence and was released in June 2023, a few months before the Netflix movie inspired by his criminal exploits premiered. So, the former Insys Therapeutics CEO reentered the real world just in time for his story to become a hot topic again. However, unlike Kapoor, Pain Hustlers ends with Dr. Jack Neel in prison and does not show him ever getting out.
