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Richard Sackler and his billionaire family, who have been accused of promoting the country's ongoing opioid epidemic, own a second pharmaceutical company.
The Sacklers are the owners of Purdue Pharma, which has created the opioid opioid analgesic OxyContin. But the family also owns a second Rhodes Island-based company, Rhodes Pharma, according to a Financial Time report published Sunday.
Rhodes Pharma is one of the largest generic creators of off-patent opioids. The company produces several opioid pain relievers that contain addictive drugs, including oxycodone, hydrocodone and morphine.
Rhodes Pharma was established in 2007 according to the registration documents of the companies obtained by Financial Time.
In the United States, Purdue Pharma and Rhodes Pharma accounted for 14.4 million opiates.
The Sacklers are worth a combined total of $ 13 billion, according to a 2016 Forbes report. The vast majority of their wealth, shared by 20 family members, comes from the manufacture of drugs.
Purdue Pharma has faced hundreds of lawsuits over the years to fuel the epidemic of opioids. In the United States, more than 63,000 people died of a drug overdose in 2016, of which 66% were related to the use of opioids.
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Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman is currently suing the company for its "important role in spreading the epidemic of opioids."
The lawsuit accused Purdue Pharma LP and Purdue Pharma Inc. of misleading Colorado doctors and patients about the high risk of drug dependence and said the company "minimized the risk of drug dependence." opioid dependence.
The lawsuit also stated that Purdue Pharma's marketing not only "exaggerated the benefits" of the drug, but the company also told doctors that they risked violating the Hippocratic oath if they did not treat patients suffering from certain conditions with opioids.
"Purdue's drugs, coupled with their reckless marketing, stole their parents' children, their sons' and daughters' families and destroyed the lives of our friends, neighbors and colleagues," Coffman said in a statement released Thursday. "Although no amount of money can bring home loved ones, it can offset the enormous costs engendered by Purdue's intentional misconduct."
The Sackler family was also recently discovered to be behind a new drug to help treat opioid addiction known as buprenorphine-water. Washington To post reported.
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