Richard Stephen Sackler

Richard Stephen Sackler is an American businessman, pharmaceutical entrepreneur and physician who was the chairman and president of Purdue Pharma, a now-defunct pharmaceutical company. Under his leadership of Purdue, the company developed the drug OxyContin, an opioid which is widely believed to have spearheaded the opioid epidemic in the United States. Sackler and Purdue's role in the epidemic led to many lawsuits and fines, with the company filing bankruptcy in 2019. The company's demise and unethical marketing tactics and strategies were the subject of the 2021 Hulu miniseries Dopesick and the 2023 Netflix miniseries Painkiller, in which Sackler is portrayed by Michael Stuhlbarg and Matthew Broderick, respectively.