The Sackler Family, Purdue Pharma, and the Lawsuits Threatening Opioid Manufacture

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Sackler Family, Purdue Pharma, and the Lawsuits Threatening Opioid Manufacture

Podcast: The Political Scene | The New Yorker
Host: Dorothy Wickenden
Guest: Patrick Radden Keefe (Staff Writer, The New Yorker)
Date: April 12, 2019
Listen here

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Overview

This episode takes an in-depth look at Purdue Pharma’s role in fueling the opioid crisis and the ensuing legal, public, and financial fallout for its owners, the Sackler family. Dorothy Wickenden interviews Patrick Radden Keefe, a journalist renowned for his investigation into Purdue and the Sacklers, about aggressive opioid marketing, regulatory failures, lawsuit strategies, and emerging social accountability. The discussion dissects how public awareness and a swell of lawsuits are changing, or failing to change, the calculus for pharmaceutical companies and their philanthropic heirs.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Background: OxyContin, Purdue Pharma, and the Sackler Family

• OxyContin Approval and Opioid Crisis

  • OxyContin approved by the FDA in 1995; since then, around 400,000 Americans have died from opioid overdoses ([01:39]).
  • Purdue Pharma, owned by the Sacklers, aggressively marketed OxyContin, insisting it was safe and minimally addictive.

• Comparison to the Tobacco Industry

  • Mike Moore (former Mississippi Attorney General):
    "They lied about the addictive nature of the opioids. And then they went out and marketed these things and told doctors everywhere, okay, it's safe. And it's created this huge opioid epidemic." ([02:58])
  • Moore suggests, as with tobacco, opioid companies were aware of the risks and responsible for misleading marketing.

Purdue Pharma’s Marketing Campaign and Regulatory Lapses

• Convincing Doctors and Shaping Perceptions ([04:02–06:04])

  • Patrick Radden Keefe:
    "Purdue Pharma... launched a pretty unprecedented marketing blitz in which they persuaded doctors, many of them doctors who ended up on the Purdue payroll, to go out and kind of spread the word."
  • OxyContin’s appeal: controlled-release formulation marketed as a lower-addiction-risk solution, though patients and abusers soon found ways to override this mechanism.

• Downplaying Addiction Risks

  • Sales representatives coached to tell doctors, “addiction is not an issue here. This drug is safe,” often citing faulty research or anecdotal stories ([06:07]).
  • Internal company evidence surfaced about abuse and patient withdrawal symptoms well before crises escalated.

• The FDA’s Role and “Abuse-Deterrent” Claims ([07:18])

  • When patent expiration loomed in 2010, Purdue released a slightly altered, so-called abuse-deterrent version to extend its exclusivity and restrict generics.
  • Keefe notes: “From really the mid-1990s, Purdue maintains there's nothing inherent... that's problematic... Then suddenly in 2010, they say, you know, there is something inherently problematic. And this is why we've released this new version.” ([09:04])

• Cynicism Exposed

  • Host Dorothy Wickenden: “The cynicism is just astonishing. So you had this perfect storm of irresponsibility by the business doctors and regulators.” ([09:36])

The Sackler Family’s Role and Philanthropy

• Family Involvement and Financial Control ([10:49])

  • The family was deeply involved in decisions to promote OxyContin—internal emails and court documents reveal direct engagement.
  • Keefe uncovered how the Sackler name was absent from Purdue’s operations, making it difficult to trace responsibility until lawsuits compelled more transparency.

• Arthur Sackler’s Legacy

  • Arthur Sackler, the eldest brother, pioneered medical advertising, especially direct-to-doctor marketing strategies for drugs like Valium and Librium ([13:29]).
  • Although his heirs sold their Purdue shares before OxyContin, his tactics and innovations set the foundation for the company’s later conduct.

Wave of Lawsuits and Corporate Response

• Number and Nature of Suits ([15:39])

  • Thousands of lawsuits emerged after evidence of misbranding and ongoing harm.
  • Purdue’s typical strategy: settle without trial and seal documents to limit future exposure.

• Mass Action and Settlement Hopes ([16:51])

  • Over 1,500 cases have been bundled together; states like Oklahoma, New York, and Massachusetts are pursuing independent legal action.
  • Keefe is doubtful settlements will reach tobacco litigation scale—“any kind of settlement you get will be completely incommensurate with the damage that's been done.” ([17:12])

• Possible Bankruptcy

  • Purdue reportedly considered bankruptcy to freeze ongoing litigation and shield assets. The NY Attorney General alleged the Sacklers siphoned billions offshore ([18:39–19:34]).

Social and Cultural Impact

• Philanthropy and Public Backlash ([19:49])

  • Major institutions (Guggenheim, Tate, National Portrait Gallery) have stopped accepting Sackler donations, though existing named spaces remain.
  • Artist Nan Goldin’s activism is credited for accelerating institutional distancing—demonstrations and public shaming have raised the reputational costs ([19:49]).

• Redemptive Actions?

  • Purdue’s recent Oklahoma settlement ($260M) earmarks funds to fight the crisis, but Keefe calls it “a drop in the bucket” compared to the crisis's true scale ([21:16]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Corporate Cynicism and Responsibility

  • Patrick Radden Keefe:
    “For a branded drug company like Purdue Pharma, the big fear is that generics will come in and start cutting into your market share... And not only that, but then they turn around and say... anyone else who would now produce a generic version of the old OxyContin... well, that is actually prone to abuse.” ([09:04])

• On Family Involvement

  • “There were numerous members of the Sackler family who were intimately involved in the kind of inner workings of Purdue Pharma, and specifically in decisions made about how and when to promote the use of these strong opioids.” ([10:49])

• On Accountability

  • “Any kind of settlement you get will be completely incommensurate with the damage that’s been done.” ([17:12])

• On Philanthropy’s Complicated Legacy

  • “I think there is a very real sense in which the toolbox that was employed by Raymond and Mortimer Sackler... was a toolbox that was devised by Arthur.” ([14:00])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:39] – Introduction: the opioid crisis and OxyContin's role
• [02:58] – Comparison of opioid and tobacco industry tactics
• [04:02–06:04] – Purdue’s marketing blitz and changing medical attitudes
• [07:18] – Abuse-deterrent claims & FDA regulatory failures
• [10:49] – Court documents on Sackler involvement
• [13:29] – Arthur Sackler and the roots of medical advertising
• [15:49] – Purdue’s legal strategy and previous settlements
• [16:51] – Prospects for mass settlements and their limits
• [18:39] – Bankruptcy, asset protection, and Sackler finances
• [19:49] – Museums rejecting Sackler money and activist impacts
• [21:16] – Recent settlements and their inadequacy

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Tone and Takeaways

The conversation maintains a probing, investigative tone, marked by moments of outrage, astonishment, and sober assessment of structural failings. Listeners come away with a deeper understanding of how profit-driven strategies, regulatory lapses, and sophisticated PR campaigns allowed the opioid crisis to spiral—and how public and legal efforts now seek, though cannot fully secure, justice and accountability.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[C]

I struggle most weeks to like, get up, get myself up and ready and go to therapy or whatever. Like even like to open the laptop to talk to my therapist. Sometimes really difficult, but I do it because I realize how important it is for me to continue to feel good. I felt the best I felt in a long time through therapy.

[B]

Learn more about online [e-mail] this is the political Scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and editors about politics. It's Friday, April 12th. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of the New Yorker. The opioid crisis, which has taken the lives of some 400,000Americans since 1999, is widely acknowledged to have been fueled by the painkiller OxyContin, first approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1995. Purdue Pharma, the company that manufactures the drug, and its owners, the Sackler family, are facing renewed scrutiny over their marketing of OxyContin in a new round of class action and state sponsored lawsuits. Mike Moore, the former attorney general of Mississippi who helped 46 states win a $246 billion lawsuit against tobacco companies, is participating in the new wave of lawsuits against opioid manufacturers. In a 2018 interview on NBC Nightly News, Moore noted the similarities between the tobacco and opioid industries.

[D]

You call the tobacco industry the most corrupt and evil corporate animal that's ever been created in this country's history.

[E]

That's right.

[D]

What do you say about Big Pharma?

[E]

They're pretty evil. And basically they did the same thing that tobacco companies did. They lied about the addictive nature of the opioids. And then they went out and marketed these things and told doctors everywhere, okay, it's safe. And it's created this huge opioid epidemic. I mean, there are 3 million opioid addicts out there in the country right.

[D]

Now, most of whom began with prescriptions, 80% of them.

[B]

Patrick Radden Keefe, a New Yorker staff writer, joins me to discuss how Purdue Pharma's aggressive marketing of OxyContin precipitated the opioid crisis, how the Sacklers philanthropy helped to shield their business from close scrutiny, and how the lawsuits and public outrage may affect the company's future. Patrick, welcome.

[D]

Thank you for having me.

[B]

You were one of the first, I'm proud to say, to really investigate Purdue pharma in a 2017 piece for the New Yorker. And you're now writing a book on and the Sackler family. And I have to say, rereading your piece made me angry all over again. How did they go about cornering the opioid market?

[D]

Well, Purdue Pharma, which is a privately held pharmaceutical company that's owned by the Sacklers, developed OxyContin and got approval for it in the 1990s. And what was new about OxyContin was that up to that point, there had been a consensus in the medical profession that you wanted to be careful about prescribing really strong opioids, because while they had tremendous benefits and they could ease pain, there was also the danger of addiction. And OxyContin was a pure pill of oxycodone, which is a very strong opioid, but with a special casing that meant that they had a kind of controlled release mechanism, which meant you could take a very large dose, but it would only quite slowly filter into your bloodstream. And so that was the revelation that Purdue had in presenting this drug. The challenge that they had was, how do you persuade doctors who have spent their whole careers really leery about prescribing strong opioids for anything other than say, kind of end of life treatment, cancer, pain. How do you persuade them that, that it's going to be all right to prescribe this pill? And what Purdue did was launched a pretty unprecedented marketing blitz in which they persuaded doctors, many of them doctors who ended up on the Purdue payroll, to go out and kind of spread the word.

[B]

What year was this?

[D]

This is in the mid-1990s, right through the late 1990s. And in fact, I mean, even after the opioid crisis began and there were clear indications that this drug was being abused, Purdue continued to send army of sales representatives to go out and essentially change the minds of American doctors about the dangers of addiction when it comes to strong opioids. And that effort proved to be remarkably successful.

[B]

How did they argue that it wasn't addictive?

[D]

Well, so the suggestion was that because of that time release mechanism, you only needed to take two OxyContin pills every 24 hours because you could take a big enough dose that it would slowly filter into your system over the course of 12 hours. And that was a strong marketing hook. And there was research, some of it, it turns out, not very sound research that the company pointed to. And also just kind of anecdotal stories that the sales reps were coached to tell in which they would go out and say, oh, fewer than 1% of people get addicted. And they would actually tell doctors, you addiction is not an issue here. This drug is safe. And right from the start, I mean, right from the late 1990s, there was evidence coming back to the company that that wasn't the case, that in fact this drug was being abused, that people were grinding up the pills to override that time release mechanism. And also the people who were using the pills even as prescribed by doctors were going into withdrawal before they reached the 12 hour point where they would need another pill.

[B]

The other thing that I find kind of baffling is the role of the FDA in all of this. So Purdue Pharma introduced a subtly different drug in 2010, and then the FDA issued this label as you describe it, basically accepting the company's pledge about its safety and claiming that it had abuse deterrent properties. But was it essentially the same drug and was it equally addictive?

[D]

Well, interestingly enough, initially there was a warning label that came with your prescription that would say, essentially whatever you do, don't grind this up in order to override the time release mechanism. And some people took this not as a warning, but as instructions. And so you then had more than a decade before Purdue Pharma fixes this problem by coming up with what they call the kind of an abuse resistant version of the drug, which would seem like the right thing to do. You come up with something that essentially couldn't be ground up in the same way. The interesting thing about this, though, is if you look at the timing for a branded drug company like Purdue Pharma, the big fear is that generics will come in and start cutting into your market share. And the exclusive patent on the original OxyContin was about to run out, at which point you would have all these generic companies come in. So from really the mid-1990s, when OxyContin is released until 2010, Purdue maintains there's nothing inherent in the drug that's problematic here that's prone to abuse. In fact, it's just these drug abusers who are criminals who are doing this.

[B]

A matter of individual responsibility.

[D]

It's individual responsibility. And then suddenly in 2010, they say, you know, there is something inherently problematic. And this is why we've released this new version. And what that should do is reset the clock on our patent and give us a continued exclusive right to produce this drug. And not only that, but then they turn around and say, and in fact, anyone else who would now produce a generic version of the old OxyContin, what we were selling until last week, well, that is actually prone to abuse. And so you shouldn't, you shouldn't.

[B]

The cynicism is just astonish. So you had this perfect storm of irresponsibility by the business doctors and regulators.

[D]

Yes.

[F]

I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's Global Editorial Director. I'm Michael Coloury, Wired's Director of Consumer Tech and Culture.

[B]

And I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show Uncanny Valley is all about the people, power and influence of Silicon Valley.

[F]

At Wired, we're constantly reporting on how technology is changing every aspect of our lives. So each week on the show, we get together to talk about one of the biggest stories in tech. Right? So whether we're talking about privacy, AI, social media, or a major tech figure, we will always explain the Silicon Valley forces behind these stories and how they affect you. Make sure you're following Uncanny Valley in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode.

[B]

What have the recently released court documents and internal emails shown about just how involved the Sackler family was in the day to day operations of its company and their knowledge about Oxycontin's role in fueling the opioid crisis.

[D]

This is something that's been so fascinating for me to watch over the last few months, given that I spent better part of a year looking at this family and their company before writing that piece that I did in 2017. At the time, what I knew is that you had this very well known philanthropic dynasty, mostly known for giving incredibly generous gifts to museums and universities and medical facilities and putting their name on these institutions. And then there's this company, Purdue Pharma, which is the source of much of this wealth and is owned by the family. But the family's name was nowhere on the company. And so I had to dig around a little bit as I was doing my research, even to figure out which family members were on the board of the company, because there was an incomplete list of board members on the website. They didn't mention the Sackler family members who were on the board. So those were the things that I knew when I wrote the piece. What was mysterious to me was how involved are these individual family members with the company in their role as board members? How actively have they participated in the decisions made by Purdue Pharma? And after my piece came out, you have many of these lawsuits, ongoing lawsuits against Purdue Pharma. And in a number of jurisdictions, the family members themselves have now been named. So the Massachusetts Attorney General and the New York Attorney General have both said, we're not just suing Purdue here. We want to go after the individual members of the family. And because these prosecutors have legal discovery, they've been able to obtain huge amounts of internal documents. And what this evidence, which has started to come out in the context of these lawsuits, has demonstrated is that, in fact, there were numerous members of the Sackler family who were intimately involved in the kind of inner workings of Purdue Pharma, and specifically in decisions made about how and when to promote the use of these strong opioids.

[B]

So let me. I want to stop you right there and ask you, because the Washington Post had an op ed piece today by Arthur Sackler's widow, and she basically lambasted the media for spreading this perception that her husband was in any way to blame for OxyContin. And maybe you could just tell us about Arthur Sack, what he actually did in pioneering medical advertising and how he got rich early on marketing tranquilizers like Librium and Valium.

[D]

Yeah, I mean, Gillian Sackler, Arthur Sackler's widow, has argued, as have some other members of Arthur Sackler's family, that when we Talk about the Sacklers, we should really be excluding Arthur. And there's a reason for this. When we talk about the Sackler family, there were these three brothers. Arthur was the oldest, and then Mortimer and Raymond Sackler were his younger brothers. They were all physicians.

[B]

And.

[D]

The company Purdue Pharma, which was originally Purdue Frederick, is owned by the heirs of Mortimer and Raymond, not Arthur. Arthur Sackler died in 1987, which was prior to the introduction of OxyContin. And after his death, his heirs sold their remaining shares in Purdue. So to one way of thinking, Arthur's relatives make a key point here, which is not all of the Sacklers are similarly situated. And that's true. When you look into the history, it gets a little bit more complicated, because Arthur pioneered medical advertising in the 1950s, and he first made a fortune promoting the use of Valium and Librium, which were both. These are tranquilizers, but actually both quite addictive as well. When you look at the way in which OxyContin was sold, you look at the effort to persuade physicians. This understanding that you're not just marketing to the end consumer, you're marketing to the doctor who will prescribe to the consumer and advise the consumer about what the patient needs, because people trust their doctors. I think there is a very real sense in which the toolbox that was employed by Raymond and Mortimer Sackler and their Ayers and Purdue Pharma was a toolbox that was devised by Arthur. To suggest that they could have done what they ended up doing with OxyContin without the pioneering work of Arthur Sackler, I think, is maybe a little shortsighted.

[B]

So there were already really serious concerns about OxyContin safety by 2001, and since then, Purdue has been sued thousands of times.

[D]

There have been many, many lawsuits, as you say. In fact, in 2006, the company pled guilty to having misbranded OxyContin and making essentially false representations about how dangerous it was and paid a big settlement. The company's response to litigation has been interesting. It has been fighting all of these on these many, many fronts. Settling cases, often in order to avoid going to trial, attempting to seal, in.

[B]

Fact, avoiding going to trial at all costs.

[D]

Yes. Attempting to seal the paper trail as often as possible. So that's been the approach of the company. I think there's a question which is, will you have, in the end, some kind of global settlement such that Purdue won't have to fight each of these lawsuits individually? And I expect that's where we will end up.

[B]

So what about the current round of lawsuits? Yesterday, our colleague Margaret Talbot wrote on the New Yorker's website about the fact that more than 1,500 of these cases have been bundled together against pharmaceutical companies and distributors. Oklahoma, New York and Massachusetts are pursuing their own lawsuits. What do we expect the outcomes to be there?

[D]

It's hard to say. And look, Purdue says in its defense that it was just one of many companies that produced these opioids and continue to. And there are many, many companies, not just producers, but distributors and others on the hook in these lawsuits. But there are two things worth pointing out. You mentioned at the top that Mike Moore, who was involved in the tobacco litigation, is involved in this process. And I think there are a lot of people who would like to see a tobacco style settlement. Two problems with that. One is that the pharmaceutical industry does not have the same amount of money as the tobacco industry did. So I think it's pretty unlikely that you'll see a settlement in the hundreds of billions of dollars. It's just, I think that's probably not in the cards. And then the other issue is that the cost of the opioid crisis, I mean, the sheer human cost, but then on top of that, the quantifiable financial cost is such that any kind of settlement you get will be completely incommensurate with the damage that's been done. So while I think it'll be something to celebrate if you have some degree of accountability and also new resources that are desperately needed to deal with issues like addiction treat. It won't be enough.

[B]

There have been some reports that Purdue Pharma is thinking about declaring bankruptcy. What happens then to the litigation?

[D]

Well, it's my understanding that that would actually freeze a lot of these suits so that you could see how tactically that might be something that the company would do. This suit by the New York Attorney General has focused quite closely on the question of. Remember, Purdue is privately held by the Sackler family. The contention of the New York Attorney General is that systematically and secretly the family has been siphoning money out of Purdue and in fact sending it offshore. And so you might end up in a situation in which Purdue has to declare bankruptcy because it has been starved of funds by the family that owns it, which is then moving those funds beyond a point where kind of out of any jurisdiction where they could be seized.

[B]

Let's talk just for a moment about the fact that just last month the Guggenheim in New York and the Tate and National Portrait Gallery in London announced they won't accept gifts any Longer from the Sacklers. Why has it taken these institutions so long to make that call?

[D]

That's a mystery to me, in part because the statements that these institutions are making are actually, I think, more limited than some of the press coverage would indicate, in the sense that they're not saying we're going to strip the Sackler name off of any of our existing wings or centers. So all they're actually saying is we won't take money in the future. And honestly, I don't know why it's taken this long. I do think part of it is the artist Nan golden, who has led a kind of fascinating campaign to go out and shame the Sacklers publicly and shame these institutions. They have done these demonstrations where suddenly 100 people converge on the Sackler wing at the Met or appear in the Guggenheim. You know, they'll come with pill bottles, orange pill, plastic pill bottles, and throw them into the pool by the Temple of Dender. And I think part of what that may have done is just created a scenari, which for any of these institutions, as they assess the reputational risk of taking another million dollars today in 2019, they've decided they're not going to do it.

[B]

So this is all kind of a form of public shaming. Has the company done anything to redeem itself in the eyes of the public?

[D]

Well, there was a big suit that was set to go forward in Oklahoma, and Purdue just settled that suit for, I believe it's $260 million. And part of that money will go to establishing ways to remediate the crisis. But the truth is, when you look at the scale of the problem, this is a drop in the bucket.

[B]

Thank you so much, Patrick.

[D]

Thank you.

[B]

Patrick Radden Keefe is a staff writer at the New Yorker and the author of the recently published say Nothing A True Story of Murder and Memory. In Northern Ireland, this has been the political scene from the New Yorker. You can subscribe to this and other New Yorker podcasts by searching for the New Yorker in your podcast app. And find more political analysis and commentary on new yorker.com feel free to rate and review the political scene on Apple Podcasts. Our theme music is by Russell Gillespie. This program is produced by Alex Barron for newyorker.com with assistance from Kylie Warner. I'm Dorothy Wickenden.

[G]

Right now, we are living through some of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known. I'm David Remnick, and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll try to make sense of what's happening, happening alongside politicians and thinkers like Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Tim Waltz, Katanji Brown, Jackson Nuke Ingrid, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Charlamagne, the God, and so many more. That's all in the New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you listen to podcasts.

[D]

From prx.