Insys Therapeutics Inc. founder John Kapoor is accused ofhelping fuel the U.S. opioid epidemic by bribing doctors to prescribe a powerful form offentanyl to patients who didn’t need the potent drug.

Kapoor, 74, was arrested Thursday in Arizona and charged withracketeering conspiracy and other felonies. He’s scheduled toappear in a Phoenix court later in the day.

Kapoor and other formerInsys executives are also accused of defrauding insurance companiesthat were reluctant to approve payments for the drug by improperlygetting prior authorization directly from the insurers and pharmacy benefit managers, Acting U.S. AttorneyWilliam Weinreb in Boston said in a press release.

“Insys executives improperly influenced health care providers toprescribe a powerful opioid for patients who did not need it,” MarkMcCormack, an FDA agent, said in the statement.

The opioid epidemic is killing 175 people a day and costing theU.S. economy billions of dollars annually, according to thegovernment. President Donald Trump plans to declare the opioidcrisis a public health emergency on Thursday.

The Insys executives are accused of bribing doctors to prescribeSubsys, a fentanyl-based spray designed to combat cancer-sufferers’pain, to people who didn’t have cancer.

Joe McGrath, an Insys spokesman, said he couldn’t immediatelycomment on Kapoor’s indictment. The company has reportedly been insettlement talks with the U.S. Justice Department to resolve aprobe into its Subsys marketing. The company’s shares fell morethan 12 percent to $6.49 in Nasdaq trading at 1:48 p.m.

Brian Kelly, Kapoor’s Boston-based defense attorney, didn’timmediately return a call for comment about his client’s indictmenton Thursday.

Kapoor stepped down as Insys’s CEO and chairman in January,about a month after prosecutors indicted the former employees inthe bribery probe. Those charged included ex-CEO Michael Babich andformer national sales director Richard Simon.

Some lower-level Insys employees have pleaded guilty and arecooperating with prosecutors. Elizabeth Gurrieri, a former managerwho oversaw insurance reimbursements, pleaded guilty to one countof conspiring to commit wire fraud in June.

Kapoor is also the chairman and largest shareholder of AkornInc., which has been acquired by German health-care providerFresenius SE for $4.3 billion in April.

Kapoor’s arrest "has no impact on the Akorn transaction," MattKuhn, a spokesman for Fresenius, said in an email. A representativefor Akorn didn’t return calls and emails seeking comment.

The U.S. Attorney in Connecticut is conducting a criminal probeof Purdue Pharmaceutical Inc.’s marketing of OxyContin. Scores ofcities and counties, as well as states, have sued companiesincluding Purdue, Endo International Plc, and Johnson &Johnson’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals, alleging that they triggered theepidemic by minimizing the addiction and overdose risks ofpainkillers such as OxyContin and Percocet.

The case is U.S. v. Babich, 16-cr-10343, U.S. District Court,District of Massachusetts (Boston).

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