Purdue Pharma L.P., known from 1892 to 2019 as the Purdue Frederick Company, was an American privately held pharmaceutical company founded by John Purdue Gray. It was sold to Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond Sackler in 1952, and then owned principally by the Sackler family and their descendants.
The company manufactured pain medicines such as hydromorphone, fentanyl, codeine, hydrocodone and oxycodone, also known by its brand name, OxyContin. The Sacklers developed aggressive marketing tactics persuading doctors to prescribe OxyContin in particular. Doctors were enticed with free trips to pain-management seminars (which were effectively all-expenses-paid vacations) and paid speaking engagements. Sales of their drugs soared, as did the number of people dying from overdoses.
As well as this, levels of heroin consumption increased significantly following Purdue's aggressive marketing campaign, and it is generally accepted that OxyContin played a large role in causing this. It did this either through people needing a stronger opioid to match a growing tolerance for OxyContin, and turning to street heroin, or through people losing their prescriptions and turning to heroin as an alternative. Perhaps the biggest contributor, however, was Purdue changing the OxyContin formula into an abuse-deterrent formulation (ADF) in 2009. Typical OxyContin abuse around the time included crushing up and snorting the pill, or injecting it. This made the high much more intense and euphoric, and made it come on much quicker. The change made the drug much trickier to abuse in this fashion, and as a result, many turned to an even more intense, relatively readily available alternative: heroin.
A series of lawsuits followed. In 2007, Purdue paid out one of the largest fines ever levied against a pharmaceutical firm for misleading the public about how addictive the drug OxyContin was compared to other pain medications. In response to the lawsuits, the company shifted its focus to abuse-deterrent formulations, but continued to market and sell opioids as late as 2019 and continued to be involved in lawsuits around the opioid epidemic in the United States.
Purdue filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on September 15, 2019, in New York City. On October 21, 2020, it was reported that Purdue had reached a settlement potentially worth US$8.3 billion, admitting that it "knowingly and intentionally conspired and agreed with others to aid and abet" doctors dispensing medication "without a legitimate medical purpose." Members of the Sackler family would additionally pay US$225 million and the company would close.
On November 24, 2020, the corporation pleaded guilty to three federal felony charges related to its marketing and sale of Oxycontin, conspiracy to defraud the United States and two charges of conspiracy to violate federal anti-kickback statutes. No executives, employees or members of the Sackler family were charged with any crimes as a part of a deal with the federal government.
Some state attorneys general protested the plan. In March 2021, the United States House of Representatives introduced a bill that would stop the bankruptcy judge in the case from granting members of the Sackler family legal immunity during the bankruptcy proceedings. The House Judicial Committee referred it to the Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law in October 2021. The bill lapsed at the end of the 117th Congress in January 2023.
As of August 2023, Purdue Pharma remained in chapter 11 bankruptcy, pending a Department of Justice appeal to the United States Supreme Court, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruling that the bankruptcy proceedings may continue.
On April 28, 2026, U.S. District Judge Madeline Cox Arleo formally sentenced to corporation a settlement valued at $8 billion, inclusive of a $3.5 billion criminal fine and a $2 billion criminal forfeiture. The corporation was ordered to dissolve and will be replaced with a new corporation, focused on the good of the public. While the Sackler family agreed to a multi-billion dollar civil settlement to resolve potential claims, they have consistently maintained they did nothing wrong and have never faced criminal prosecution for the company's actions.
On May 1st, 2026, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that Purdue Pharma was officially shut down. Knoa Pharma, LLC, which is an independent public benefit corporation and owned by the Knoa Foundation, will take over Purdue Pharma's operations of selling opioid products and address the opioid crisis Purdue Pharma is responsible for spreading.
The company's downfall was the subject of the 2021 Hulu miniseries Dopesick, the 2021 HBO film The Crime of the Century, the 2023 Netflix series Painkiller, and several documentaries and books.
Purdue Pharma had no relation to Purdue University or the Purdue University College of Pharmacy, something Purdue University has made clear on multiple occasions to avoid association.
History The company that became Purdue Pharma was founded in 1892 by medical doctors John Purdue Gray and George Frederick Bingham in New York City as the Purdue Frederick Company. The company made a tonic compound made with sherry and glycerin.Smithsonian Institution: Gray's Glycerine Tonic Comp. description Sixty years later, in 1952, the company was sold to three other medical doctors, brothers Arthur Mitchell Sackler, Raymond Sackler , and Mortimer David Sackler , who relocated the business to Yonkers, New York. The brothers all held a one-third share in the company, but Arthur's share passed to his brothers after his death in 1987. Mortimer died in 2010, followed by Raymond in 2017.The Family That Built an Empire of Pain, New Yorker, 23 October 2017 Under the Sacklers, the company opened additional offices in New Jersey and Connecticut. The headquarters are located in Stamford, Connecticut.
The modern company, Purdue Pharma L.P., was incorporated in 1991 and focused on pain management medication, calling itself a "pioneer in developing medications for reducing pain, a principal cause of human suffering". In 1984, its extended-release formulation of morphine, MS Contin was released. OxyContin was released in 1996 after Curtis Wright, an employee of the Food and Drug Administration approved its use on a 12-hour dosage cycle. Starting in 1998, Purdue Pharma secured longterm deals with several Johnson & Johnson companies to supply the raw materials for their opioid products. Around the time of OxyContin's release, the American Pain Society introduced its "pain as fifth vital sign" campaign. Veterans Health Administration adopted the campaign as its national pain management strategy.
In September 2015, the company's website said it had some 1,700 people on its payroll. That same month, the company announced it would acquire VM Pharma in the process gaining access to worldwide development and commercial rights to an allosteric selective tropomyosin receptor kinase inhibitor program, i.e., the Phase II candidate VM-902A. The deal could have generated more than US$213 million for VM Pharma.
Financial worth OxyContin became a blockbuster drug. "Between 1995 and 2001, OxyContin brought in $2.8 billion in revenue for Purdue Pharma." Cumulative revenues had increased to US$31 billion by 2016 and US$35 billion by 2017. All of the company's profits go to Sackler family trusts and entities.The man at the center of the secret OxyContin files, STAT, 12 May 2016 According to a 2017 article in The New Yorker, Purdue Pharma is "owned by one of America's richest families, with a collective net worth of thirteen billion dollars". Indepth-analysis Many US states allege the family is worth more than $13 billion.
Philanthropy In 2016, Forbes magazine listed the Sacklers as one of the 20 wealthiest families in the U.S. and noted that the Sacklers have contributed money to museums, universities and cultural institutions around the world.Sackler money complicates donation policies for museums, AP, 18 September 2019 However, the Purdue website makes little mention of anyone in the Sackler family or their ownership of the company. Allen Frances, former chair of psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine, said: "Their name has been pushed forward as the epitome of good works and of the fruits of the capitalist system. But, when it comes down to it, they've earned this fortune at the expense of millions of people who are addicted. It's shocking how they have gotten away with it."The Family that Built an Empire of pain. The New Yorker, 23 October 2017
Structure The company's branches include Purdue Pharma L.P., The Purdue Frederick Company, Purdue Pharmaceutical Products L.P., and Purdue Products L.P. Its manufacturing takes place at three sites: Purdue Pharmaceuticals L.P., a plant located in Wilson, North Carolina; the P.F. Laboratories, Inc., in Totowa, New Jersey; and Rhodes Technologies L.P., in Coventry, Rhode Island. Purdue Pharma L.P. also has research labs in Cranbury, New Jersey. OxyContin is currently distributed throughout the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Distribution takes place from the P.F. Laboratories in Totowa, New Jersey.
Rhodes Pharmaceuticals is a sister company that was established in Rhode Island in 2007. The company is one of the largest producers of off-patent generic opioids in the US. Sister companies to Purdue that are also controlled by descendants of the Sackler brothers are Napp Pharmaceuticals in the United Kingdom and Mundipharma that are selling opioids globally.
New drugs are being developed under other company names, such as Adlon Therapeutics and Imbrium. Both are based in the same building as their parent company in downtown Stamford and share employees.
Management Richard Sackler, the son of Raymond Sackler, started work at the company in 1971. He was named president in 1999 and became co-chairman of the board in 2003. Richard oversaw the research department that developed OxyContin and managed the sales and marketing unit.
Craig Landau was appointed CEO on June 22, 2017. He joined Purdue Pharma L.P. in 1999 and was chief medical officer and as vice president of R&D innovation, clinical and medical affairs. In 2013, he was appointed president and CEO of Purdue Pharma (Canada).
In 2018, eight members of the Sackler family were listed as active or former members of the board of directors. Steve Miller became chairman in July 2018. By early 2019, the Sacklers had departed the Purdue Pharma board, leaving a board of five members.
Potential for abuse Purdue Pharma manufactures pain medicines such as hydromorphone, oxycodone, fentanyl, codeine, and hydrocodone. It makes drugs such as MS Contin, OxyContin, and Ryzolt. In 1972, Contin (a controlled drug-release system) was developed. The most commonly abused medications that the company produces are MS Contin and OxyContin. Both can be abused by crushing, chewing, snorting, or injecting the dissolved product. These ingestion methods create a significant risk to the abuser; they can result in overdose and death. Drug-seeking tactics that addicts undergo to obtain the medication include "doctor shopping", which is visiting a number of different physicians to obtain additional prescriptions and refusal to follow up with appropriate examinations, using "pill mills", and prescriber practices with lax controls. Along with the high potential for abuse among people without prescriptions, there is also a risk for physical dependency and reduced reaction or drug desensitization for patients that are prescribed them. Nevertheless, strong analgesic drugs remain indispensable to patients with severe acute and cancer pain.World Health Organization. Cancer pain relief and palliative care. Geneva: WHO 1990
Marketing strategy
FDA approval