Sackler Family Memo Shows Purdue Pharma Owners Worried About Exposure
- Unsealed parts of Massachusetts’s suit provide new details
- Purdue, Sackler family sued over OxyContin marketing efforts
Bottles of Purdue Pharma L.P. OxyContin medication.
Photographer: George Frey/Bloomberg
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After criminal probes into Purdue Pharma LP’s marketing of opioid painkillers led to guilty pleas in 2007 by some of the drugmaker’s top executives, the head of the clan that owns the company took note of the risks they all faced.
Dr. Richard Sackler, a Purdue board member, warned his family members in a secret 2008 memo that Purdue’s business posed a “dangerous concentration of risk’’ and it was vital to have loyal subordinates in place to provide a legal shield, according to a newly released lawsuit.