The Sackler family’s combined $13 billion fortune is largely a product of their stake in Purdue Pharma, the report states. Through their fortune, the family has funded at least two endowed professorships at the medical school, as well as the Yale University Raymond and Beverly Sackler Institute for Biological, Physical and Engineering Sciences. The family has also donated funding to the medical school for the establishment of the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Visiting Professor/Lecturer at the School of Medicine.
Richard S. Sackler, former co-chairman and president of Purdue Pharma, has also served as a member of the medical school’s dean’s council and the Yale Cancer Center director’s advisory board since July 2014, according to the report.
“These are gifts that different family members made as individual family gifts. These were not gifts from the company — these were individual family gifts, so in that sense, these individuals have wealth that they gave to us, so it’s no more complicated than that when they made these gifts a number of years ago,” said Yale University Vice President for Development Joan O’Neill.
According to a university representative, once a fund or program is named, the university is contractually and ethically bound to the terms of the gift agreement. Renaming or altering the funds’ use must be approved by the donor, the report states.
In 1995, Purdue Pharma released the drug OxyContin and marketed it as a remedy for short-term and long-term pain. Abuse of the drug has contributed to an estimated 10,000 deaths per year, according to the report.
President Donald Trump declared the opioid epidemic a national public health emergency last month.
More articles on hospital-physician relationships:
U of Memphis nursing professor under fire for tweeting comments about White House press secretary freezing to death
How Geisinger, Cleveland Clinic, others are responding to negative patient reviews
Video allegedly shows UHS behavioral health facility staff assaulting young patients: 8 things to know
