Raymond SacklerKBE was an American physician, billionaire entrepreneur, and philanthropist. Raymond Sackler founded Purdue Pharma together with his brothers Arthur M. Sackler and Mortimer Sackler. Purdue Pharma is the developer of OxyContin. Sackler, along with his brother Arthur, have been linked with the rise of direct pharmaceutical marketing and eventually to the rise of addiction to OxyContin in the United States. There are concerns that the Sackler family's philanthropy is used as "reputation laundering" from profits acquired from the misselling of opiates which contributed to the opioid epidemic in North America.
Early life
Born in Brooklyn, New York to a Jewish family, in 1920, Sackler was educated at Erasmus High School, and attended New York University where he received a bachelor's degree in 1938. Due to Jewish quotas imposed by the major U.S. medical schools during that era, he started his medical education at Anderson College of Medicine in Glasgow, Scotland, which he attended from 1938 to 1940. When World War II began, he stayed in Scotland and volunteered in the British Home Guard and also served as a plane spotter. He returned to the U.S. and completed his studies at Middlesex University School of Medicine where he received an MD in 1944. Sackler married Beverly Feldman in 1944. They had two sons, Richard S. Sackler and Jonathan D. Sackler. Beverly Sackler died on October 15, 2019 at the age of 95.
With lessons learned in research, Sackler and his brother Mortimer transitioned into the development of numerous pharmaceutical, manufacturing, and research companies, Sackler being closely associated with the now global reach of Purdue Pharma in the United States and Canada and Mundipharma, Ltd. in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Purdue Pharma, which is 100% privately owned and operated by the families of Raymond and Mortimer Sackler, is well known for successful research and development, and particularly for marketing the opiate drug Oxycontin and related compounds.
Controversy
On October 30, 2017, The New Yorker published a multi-page exposé on Raymond Sackler, Purdue Pharma, and the Sackler family. The article links Raymond and Arthur Sackler's business acumen with the rise of direct pharmaceutical marketing and eventually to the rise of addiction to OxyContin in the United States. The article implies that Raymond Sackler bears moral responsibility for the opioid epidemic in the United States. In 2019, the New York Times revealed that Sackler had told company officials in 2008 to “measure our performance by Rx’s by strength, giving higher measures to higher strengths.” This was verified by legally obtained documents tied to a new lawsuit filed in June 2018 by the Massachusetts attorney general, Maura Healey. The lawsuit claims that Purdue Pharma and members of the Sackler family knew that putting patients on high dosages of OxyContin for long periods increased the risks of serious side effects, including addiction. Nonetheless, they promoted higher dosages because stronger pain pills brought the company and the Sacklers the most profit. On February 1, 2019, Healey released unredacted documents showing that the Sacklers directed doctors to overprescribe the drug and listed doctors who overprescribed Oxycontin for the Sackler family's profit rather than patients' health.
