Owner: Purdue hoped tamper-resistant Oxy could help crisis

A member of the family that owns Purdue Pharma said they had hoped that increasing sales of an abuse-deterrent version of OxyContin would help get the U.S. opioid crisis under control

The family that owns Purdue Pharma had hoped to rein in a burgeoning opioid crisis a decade ago by ramping up sales of a new version of OxyContin that was harder to tamper with for a faster high, one of the family members told a court Thursday. Mortimer D.A. Sackler was the third member of the wealthy family to testify in a hearing, held by videoconference, on whether a judge should accept Purdue’s plan to reorganize into a new company no longer owned by family members. Sackler served more than two decades on Purdue’s board of directors and for a time was a vice president, though he said he had no official duties in that role. “It was important to the board that the market share of abuse-deterrent opioids grew because we believed and were told repeatedly by management that abuse-deterrent opioids saved lives,” he said.