New Jersey on Thursday filed a four-count lawsuit against drugmaker Insys Therapeutics over its involvement in the deadly opioid crisis that Gov. Chris Christie has committed his final year in office to fighting on the state and national levels.

New Jersey authorities claim the Arizona-based drugmaker unlawfully pushed its opioid-fentanyl prescription Subsys to a broader population, and at higher doses, than approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The drug was approved for the "narrow" purpose of treating cancer pain for opioid-tolerant patients, Attorney General Christopher Porrino said in announcing the suit, which was filed in Middlesex County.

But the "greed" of Insys put hundreds of lives in danger and is alleged to have led to the death of at least one person in New Jersey, a 32-year-old woman from Camden County who was prescribed the potent drug for fibromyalgia.

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Keep scrolling to read the complaint.

“The conduct alleged in our lawsuit is nothing short of evil,” Porrino said. “Knowing full well it was putting lives in peril by pushing for broad-based consumption of a highly specialized and incredibly powerful prescription drug — a form of fentanyl approved only for treatment of pain-racked and opioid-tolerant cancer patients — Insys allegedly forged ahead and did it anyway. We contend that the company used every trick in the book, including sham speaking and consulting fees and other illegal kickbacks, in a callous campaign to boost profits from the sale of its marquee drug Subsys.”

By filing the suit, New Jersey joins a growing number of states taking legal action against manufacturers of the drugs at the heart of a national epidemic. More than two dozen cities, counties and states have filed suits against drug companies alleging deceptive marketing practices and understating the addictive effects of drugs like OxyContin, Duragesic and Percocet.

Those drugs and other opioids have fueled a growing epidemic of unprecedented proportion. Drug overdose is now the leading cause of death in the U.S., with more than 64,000 in 2016, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. And the majority of drug deaths have been linked to opioids like prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Story continues below complaint.

The increase in deaths has coincided with a rapid rise in prescription drugs entering the market. The amount of prescription opioids sold to pharmacies, hospitals and doctors’ offices nearly quadrupled from 1999 to 2010, according to the centers, despite no overall change in the amount of pain that Americans reported. Since 1999, deaths from prescription opioids have more than quadrupled, according to the centers. But the high cost of painkillers on the black market has also prompted waves of users to move to heroin, a cheaper and more potent alternative.

Porrino acknowledged earlier this year that his office had joined a multistate investigation of drug companies over their role in the opioid epidemic. His office had also subpoenaed Johnson & Johnson, the New Brunswick-based pharmaceutical giant that is named in many of the lawsuits around the country over its sales and marketing of opioid painkillers Duragesic, Nucynta and Nucynta ER.

The suit filed Thursday focuses solely on Insys. It alleges that the drug manufacturer violated the state's Consumer Fraud Act and the New Jersey False Claims Act. Insys introduced Subsys to the market in 2012. The company has raised its price for the drug every year since, selling $74.2 million through the third quarter of 2016 and accounting for 98 percent of its net revenues, according to the Attorney General's Office.

New Jersey contributed to the company's bottom line. The Attorney General's Office said two state employee health benefits plans paid a total of about $10.3 million to reimburse Subsys prescriptions between 2012 and the third quarter of 2016, while the state Workers' Compensation Program paid another $300,000.

The lawsuit alleges that Insys devised a strategy to expand its market share for Subsys by "aggressively pushing" so-called off-label, or unapproved, uses of the drug, including to podiatrists and other specialty practitioners who would not typically have reason to prescribe the powerful painkiller.

Subsys is a single-dose oral spray. It is fentanyl-based and 50 times stronger than heroin.

Insys did not respond to a request seeking comment on the lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges that Insys representatives used or developed false records to lock in pre-authorization approvals and ensure paid reimbursement claims. It also alleges that the company "routinely" misled consumers by falsely representing that doctors were prescribing Subsys based on their unbiased, independent clinical judgment. But that clinical judgment had been “co-opted based on Insys’s unlawful payment of kickbacks to prescribers," Porrino said.

“As we allege, the fact that Insys was unlawfully flooding the market with a fentanyl product 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine seems not to have troubled the company at all,” Porrino said. “Nor, it appears, was it bothered by the notion that such a strategy could contribute to, and exacerbate, the grave opiate crisis being confronted by New Jersey and every other state. Insys launched a business plan that we allege was propelled by titanic greed and corporate irresponsibility, and we’re committed to holding them accountable for it.”

The suit seeks maximum civil penalties on the three counts of consumer fraud and three times the state's actual damages for the alleged violation of the False Claims Act. The suit also seeks to have Insys held responsible for costs and fees incurred by the state.