The Fenynal Crisis - Part 2

The deaths counted today as part of the "fentanyl crisis" are, in a direct and traceable line, consequences of decisions made in Stamford, Connecticut boardrooms in the 1990s.

Stamford, Connecticut boardrooms in the 1990s.

Stamford, Connecticut boardrooms in the 1990s. Who were these board room members and their relationship to the pharmaceutical industry?

The Sackler family was not merely connected to the pharmaceutical industry, …

This is a story with extraordinary depth — and the answer to your question is that the Sackler family was not merely connected to the pharmaceutical industry, they essentially invented the modern form of pharmaceutical marketing. The boardroom in Stamford was the culmination of a project that began generations earlier.

The Three Brothers: Origins of the Dynasty

Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond Sackler were children of Jewish immigrants raised in Brooklyn. All three became medical doctors. They were physicians first — which is itself significant, because their later conduct cannot be attributed to ignorance of pharmacology or addiction medicine. They knew what opioids were. Wikipedia

In 1952, Raymond and Mortimer Sackler bought the small pharmaceutical company Purdue Frederick. At that point it was a modest business selling laxatives and antiseptics. Arthur, the eldest brother, did not take an ownership stake in Purdue directly — but his influence on what Purdue would eventually become was arguably greater than that of either of his brothers. Unlvundergraduatelawreview

Arthur Sackler: The Architect of the Entire Model

Arthur Sackler is the figure who deserves particular examination, because he did not merely participate in pharmaceutical marketing — he invented it in its modern form.

The Medical Advertising Hall of Fame, which honored Arthur Sackler posthumously, stated: "No single individual did more to shape the character of medical advertising than the multi-talented Dr. Arthur Sackler. His seminal contribution was bringing the full power of advertising and promotion to pharmaceutical marketing." Constantine Cannon

Among the advertising agency's clients was Hoffman-La Roche, which developed the benzodiazepine sedatives Librium and Valium. Arthur Sackler's aggressive marketing tactics — which included advertising directly to doctors — made Valium a household word and the biggest new drug success story of the 1960s and 70s. Meanwhile, Mortimer and Raymond were running Purdue Frederick. Working Nurse

That precedent is worth pausing on. Valium — a highly addictive benzodiazepine — was the first drug to generate over $100 million in sales, propelled by Arthur Sackler's techniques. The Sacklers had already run the exact same playbook once before OxyContin existed. A genuinely addictive sedative, marketed aggressively to physicians as safe, generating enormous profits, eventually causing a dependence epidemic. When OxyContin arrived forty years later, the family was not experimenting — it was applying a proven formula.

Arthur built what one analyst describes as a "vertically integrated empire" — encompassing drug discovery, manufacture, marketing, advertising, and medical publications — all structured to promote drug sales while obscuring the conflicts of interest involved. He helped condition both doctors and patients to look for the quick fix in pill form, and created an environment in which overconsumption of drugs was stoked by massive marketing budgets. HealthCommentary

Despite having many conflicts of interest, Arthur kept these associations hidden by leaving his brothers, friends, and ex-wife as figureheads for various companies. Arthur himself died in 1987, before OxyContin was launched, and his estate was separated from the main Sackler holdings — a fact his descendants have used to distance his legacy from Purdue's crimes, though the model he built made those crimes possible. Wikipedia

The 1990s Boardroom: Who Was Actually There

When OxyContin launched in 1996, the key Sackler family members present and directing strategy were:

Richard Sackler — son of Raymond, who held an MD from NYU. He served as a board member from 1990, became president from 1999 to 2003, and then board co-chair from 2004 to 2007. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey described him as a micromanager who directed Purdue's strategy in detail, and the internal documents support this: he was present on the marketing strategy emails from the earliest days, personally drove the push for higher doses and broader prescribing, and personally authored the strategy to blame addicts when the crisis became undeniable. NPR

Kathe Sackler — served as Vice President and board member from 1990 to 2018. She testified before Congress in 2020 in one of the first times Sackler family members appeared under oath. house

David Sackler — Richard's son, board member from 2012 to 2018, also testified before Congress.

The operational executives who carried out strategy and became the public faces in criminal proceedings were:

Paul Goldenheim, as Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer, was the man behind OxyContin's entire scientific execution — a Harvard-trained physician with residency at Beth Israel Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, who left Purdue in 2004 only to become president of TransForm Pharmaceuticals before being indicted for misbranding in 2006. Michael Friedman rose to become Purdue's CEO, having orchestrated the marketing strategy from as early as 1994. Howard Udell served as the company's general counsel. The Cinemaholic

In 2007, these three pleaded guilty in federal court to misdemeanor misbranding charges and were ordered to pay a combined $634.5 million in fines, receiving three years probation and 400 hours of community service — no prison time. Federal prosecutors had recommended felony charges and prison sentences. That decision not to pursue indictments followed meetings with a Purdue Pharma defense team whose advisers included Rudy Giuliani, a former US Attorney. TimeThe Seattle Times

The Global Continuation: Mundipharma

Perhaps the most telling evidence of intent is what happened after Purdue began facing liability in the United States. Rather than winding down, the Sackler family simply redirected the same operation internationally through their separately structured company Mundipharma.

As the US opioid market became legally fraught, the Sackler family turned to China. Mundipharma representatives in China told doctors that OxyContin was less addictive than other opioids — the same pitch that Purdue had already admitted in US federal court was false. biospace

Mundipharma actively lobbied to open European countries to greater opioid prescribing, sponsored doctors to promote prescription opioids and deny their addiction potential, and set up ostensibly patient-led groups to advocate for greater opioid access — the same infrastructure used in the US. In Poland, this produced new legislation allowing any doctor to write opioid prescriptions. In Italy, Mundipharma's practices triggered police and legal investigations. Some Western European companies copied the tactics. brookings

Most remarkably, even as Purdue's US collapse accelerated, Mundipharma moved to dominate the market for opioid overdose reversal treatment, developing and selling a naloxone nasal spray. Critics described the logic as deeply cynical — profiting first from creating addiction and overdose, then from treating it. As one addiction researcher put it at the time: "You're in the business of selling medicine that causes addiction and overdoses, and now you're in the business of selling medicine that treats addiction and overdoses? That's pretty clever, isn't it?" Courthouse News Service

The full picture is of a family that had been in the business of pharmaceutical influence since the 1940s, that had already run a version of the opioid playbook with Valium, and that applied inherited techniques to OxyContin with full professional knowledge of the consequences. When the US legal system finally closed in on them, they moved the operation offshore. The boardroom in Stamford was not the beginning of the story — it was approximately the middle of it.

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