Purdue Pharma

Purdue Pharma started as the Purdue Frederick Company in 1892. It was an American privately held pharmaceutical company in New York. Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond Sackler bought it in 1952. They concentrated on pain management and advertised their drugs to doctors. Purdue Pharma L.P was created in 1991.^[1]

In 1996, Purdue Pharma started selling OxyContin, a new version of oxycodone, an opioid. It was approved by the FDA in 1995 after no long-term studies and no assessment of how addictive it was.^[2] Their advertising to doctors was very effective. The drug was very successful and made US$35 billion for Purdue.^[3] It is very easy to be addicted to it. From 1999 to 2020 opioids killed about 500,000 people in the USA. ^[4]

In 2007 the company was fined $634.5 million for misleading people about how addictive OxyContin was compared to other pain medicine.^[5] They carried on selling opioids until 2019. The company and the Sackler family were sued by hundreds of people and many American states.^[6] The company filed for bankruptcy.^[7]