COMING AND GOING

OxyContin Billionaire Richard Sackler Patents New Drug to Get You Off OxyContin

Patent granted to Richard Sackler.

Pharmaceutical billionaire Richard Sackler, whose family-owned company Purdue Pharma created the notorious drug OxyContin, has been granted a patent for a new drug designed to help wean people off that highly addictive opiate. Purdue has been named as one of the key drivers in an opioid epidemic that is killing tens of thousands of Americans every year. The Financial Times reports that Sackler now stands to make millions more dollars from a milder opiate that would be sold to people addicted to more powerful drugs like heroin or OxyContin. Thanks—in part—to Purdue Pharma, that is a lucrative and growing market. Earlier this year, Massachusetts filed a lawsuit against members of the Sackler family accusing them of running a “deadly, deceptive scheme to sell opioids.”