‘This is a drug that’s generated $35 billion since 1996 so they had a lot of money to play with’
The Sackler family were great philanthropists. Galleries and museums had wings named after them. They were easily associated with their acts of generosity. But they were less public about their role in Purdue Pharma, the company that brought OxyContin to the market in 1996 and a drug whose availability was central to the opioid epidemic in America over the past twenty years. Patrick Radden Keefe has written the story of the family and how over three generations they shaped the way medicine and prescription drugs were marketed in the US and how that led to addiction and denial.
