Pain Hustlers might seem like another true-crime Netflix outing, but the hit movie isn't entirely telling the truth.
The new movie starring Chris Evans and Emily Blunt starts with a declaration that it's "inspired by true events". That's pretty normal for a movie based on real-life events as not everything can be completely accurate to the true story.
However, Pain Hustlers takes it one step further by being a fictionalised account of a real-life scandal. Unless you've researched beforehand, you won't know that it's based on Insys Therapeutics and its founder and CEO John Kapoor.
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The movie ends with news footage of Kapoor's conviction after his company was embroiled in the opioid crisis for promoting its highly addictive Subsys to cancer patients. (It's portrayed in the movie as Lonafen, which is not a real drug.)
Even though it's fictional, Pain Hustlers does remain close to the true story of Insys, but if you want to know more, we're here to help.
Who is John Kapoor?
Born around 1942 in Punjab, India, John Kapoor later moved to Mumbai to study at the Institute of Chemical Technology (formerly UDCT). After earning a degree in pharmacy, he headed to America under a scholarship from the University of Buffalo.
With a promising career ahead of him, Kapoor obtained a doctorate in medicinal chemistry in 1972 and quickly landed a job at Invenex Pharmaceutical.
Kapoor found his feet at LyphoMed and took the company public, but as Forbes notes, he was involved in a scandal where poor production standards led to several deaths.
This was Kapoor's first run-in with disgrace, with Insys Therapeutics later hitting the headlines. Having founded Insys in 1990, Kapoor realised that developing a spray delivery system for a drug and marketing it as a premium product could bring huge profits.
Pain Hustlers true story: What happened at Insys?
Kapoor privately funded Insys to develop Subsys. It was approved to help cancer patients suffering from immense pain, but it contained Fentanyl, which made Subsys approximately 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more potent than heroin.
Kapoor hired several of the company's top execs, who became his co-conspirators. They were accused of bribing practitioners into prescribing Subsys, even when it might not be medically necessary to patients. Prosecutors later maintained that the scheme also defrauded insurance companies into paying for Subsys.
The Department of Justice explains how Kapoor authorised "speaker programs" to increase Subsys's brand awareness through educational lunches. However, these were used as a way to target practitioners, pay bribes, and offer kickbacks in exchange for a boost in Subsys prescriptions.
Among his top practitioner targets were those Kapoor knew had abused prescribing opioids.
We see these events play out in Pain Hustlers and while the characters are fictional, they are inspired by the real-life figures. Andy García's eccentric Jack Neel is a clear take on Kapoor, while Dr Lydell (Brian d'Arcy James) is the movie's version of one of the doctors involved in the scheme.
Where is John Kapoor now?
Following a 2017 arrest in Arizona, the DOJ confirms Kapoor was charged with RICO conspiracy, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Law. Ironically, Kapoor's arrest came the same day then-president Donald Trump declared the opioid crisis a "national emergency".
In May 2019, a federal jury convicted Kapoor and four Insys executives of racketeering. Among them was former Insys vice president of managed markets Michael Gurry, who CNN reports was sentenced to 33 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $3.6 million.
The Department of Justice confirms that at the age of 76, Kapoor was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison in 2020, three years of supervised release, and was ordered to pay a $250,000 fine.
Although Kapoor was the highest-ranking pharmaceutical boss to be sentenced amidst the opioid crisis, his sentence was much less than the 15 years the US government sought.
Kapoor's incarceration was delayed due to COVID-19, but he was eventually housed at FPC Duluth, a minimum security federal prison camp with a release date of December 11, 2024.
Ultimately, Reuters reports that Kapoor was released in June 2023 after only serving two years in prison. In August 2023, he was ordered to pay back $6 million in legal fees due to an unsuccessful criminal defence paid for by Insys.
Pain Hustlers is available to watch now on Netflix.
Tom Chapman is a pop culture-loving writer and NCTJ-accredited Broadcast Journalist with over seven years of experience covering the small and silver screen.
Starting his career with a post at Movie Pilot in Berlin, Tom took on freelancing full-time with regular stints at Digital Spy, Screen Rant and Comic Book Resources.
These days, you can still find him covering all things Marvel and Star Wars at Digital Spy, while dipping his toe in bylines at Yahoo! and IGN.
Tom likes to think his spirit animal is a cross between Gale Weathers and Olenna Tyrell.
