(Bloomberg) -- A U.S. prosecutor portrayed Insys Therapeutics Inc. founder John Kapoor as greedy and reckless during closing arguments in his racketeering trial over the sale of the opioid painkiller Subsys.

Kapoor “exploited” patients to sell Subsys, Assistant U.S. Attorney Nathaniel Yeager told a jury in Boston on Thursday. “These patients were used. Their pain was exploited,” he said, calling the defendants in the case “driven by greed.”

The trial marks the first prosecution of a pharmaceutical company chief executive tied to the national opioid epidemic, which claims more than 100 lives in the U.S. daily, according to government research.

Drug companies can legally pay doctors to tout opioid painkillers to their colleagues at educational dinners. But prosecutors say Insys executives used its speakers-program fees illegally to get physicians to write more prescriptions for Subsys and then lied to insurance companies about what kinds of patients were receiving the painkiller.

‘Conceived in Arrogance’

Kapoor and others at Insys “eliminated the risk of failure by committing a crime” and putting “profits over patients,” Yeager told the court. He said the case wasn’t a referendum on insurance companies, but about a crime “conceived in arrogance” and “executed with brazen audacity.”

In her own closing, Kapoor’s attorney Beth Wilkinson countered that her client was already so rich he didn’t need more money and never sold his Insys stock while his underlings made millions selling theirs.

“He’s kept his money in this business because he believes in it,” Wilkinson told the jury. “He had every reason to believe that this was good for patients, and he put his money where his mouth is.”

Federal prosecutors called 39 witnesses in a case spanning two months against Kapoor, former insurance reimbursement call center chief Michael Gurry and ex-sales managers Joseph Rowan, Richard Simon and Sunrise Lee. The defense case took two days and featured a handful of witnesses, including a patient who vouched for the benefits of Subsys.

Choose a Witness

“There’s no agreement to pay off these doctors,” Wilkinson told the jury.

She argued that Alec Burlakoff, the company’s former head of sales, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and racketeering charges and testified for the U.S., had told the jury a story that conflicted with the account of former Chief Executive Officer Michael Babich, the government’s other star witness.

Burlakoff said the speakers program was designed to bribe doctors, she said, while Babich said Burlakoff never told him and others the program was based on bribes.

“They are asking you to figure out” which one of their witnesses was lying, Wilkinson told the jury. The government, she said, “doesn’t seem to care.”

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.