Empire of Pain summary

Purdue Frederick’s mainstay products–a laxative, and an ear wax remover–were by no means glamorous. But by the mid-1960s, the company was making the Sackler brothers very rich.

The three owned equal shares, but Arthur had his advertising agency to run, so he left Mortimer and Raymond in charge of day-to-day management. 

The Met in New York City is one of the most important institutions of art in the world. To have your name adorned there, say on a collection or a room, is to enter a new strata of New York high society. But Arthur Sackler already had his massive personal collection of Chinese art sitting in the Met’s Sackler Gallery. He wanted something bigger, more befitting of his name. 

The Sackler Wing opened in 1978, and it was an impressive space. One wall was a tower of glass, and there was a large reflecting pool surrounding the relocated ruins of an ancient Egyptian temple. 

Arthur Sackler died in 1987. Given his many heirs (two ex-wives, a widow, and four children), as well as his secrecy, and the brothers’ entangled business affairs, settling the estate was a nasty and long process. His heirs eventually sold their third of Purdue Frederick. But after Arthur’s death, a large rift opened between all three families.

Within Purdue, Mortimer’s side represented the A shares, and Raymond’s the B shares. The two families would sit at opposite ends of the boardroom table, and many meetings erupted into shouting matches and the occasional brawl.

The first hurdle Purdue had to overcome was the FDA. They skirted around the regulator before with the release of MS Contin. This time, the man to target was Curtis Wright, who oversaw pain medication approvals. While Purdue and the FDA went back and forth on the details of the label for months, Purdue developed a cozy relationship with Wright. 

Just how cozy? Not long after OxyContin was approved in record time, Wright left the FDA and secured a $400,000 annual salary working at Purdue Pharma.

In 2000, the federal prosecutor for Maine, Jay McCloskey, sent out thousands of letters to physicians across the state warning them about the dangers of OxyContin. At that point, Maine was in a full blown opioid crisis. And it wasn’t the only state.

Purdue’s lawyer, Howard Udell, would later argue in court that McCloskey’s letter was the first time they’d heard about widespread abuse of the drug. But this was a lie. 

It was quiet in the Guggenheim Museum that evening. The large, spiraled atrium was filled with its usual whispers and foot steps. Then suddenly, squares of paper started raining down from the top floor. Banners unfolded along the balconies that read, “Shame on Sackler.”

The protest was organized by famed photographer Nan Goldin, whose own works hung in the museum. It was the beginning of massive public pressure on institutions to remove the Sackler name from their walls.