1. Richard Stephen Sackler was born on March 10,1945 and is an American businessman and physician who was the chairman and president of Purdue Pharma, a former company best known as the developer of OxyContin, whose role in the opioid epidemic in the United States became the subject of many lawsuits and fines, filing for bankruptcy in 2019.
The company's downfall was the subject of the 2021 Hulu miniseries Dopesick and the 2023 Netflix miniseries Painkiller, in which Sackler is portrayed by Michael Stuhlbarg and Matthew Broderick, respectively.
Richard Sackler was born in 1945 in Roslyn, New York, the son of Beverly and Raymond Richard Sackler.
Richard Sackler joined Purdue Pharma in 1971, as assistant to his father, the company's president.
Richard Sackler became head of research and development and head of marketing.
Richard Sackler was a key figure in the development of Oxycontin, being the moving force behind Purdue Pharma's research around 1990 that pushed Oxycontin to replace MS Contin that was about to have generic competition.
In pushing Oxycontin through to FDA approval in 1995, Richard Sackler managed to get the FDA to approve a claim that Oxycontin was less addictive than other pain killers, although no studies on how addictive it was or how likely it was to be abused had been conducted as part of the approval process.
Richard Sackler urged pharmaceutical representatives to urge doctors to prescribe as high doses as possible to increase the company profits.
Richard Sackler was in charge of the research department that developed OxyContin.
In 2015, Richard Sackler was deposed by four lawyers in Louisville, Kentucky.
Richard Sackler was married to Beth Richard Sackler but is divorced; they have three children.
Richard Sackler was portrayed by Michael Stuhlbarg in the 2021 Hulu series Dopesick.