NYU to remove Sackler name following Purdue Pharma deal

New York University’s Langone Medical Center will strip the Sackler name from its biomedical institute following the US Justice Department’s announcement that Purdue Pharma, the company founded by the Sackler family, will plead guilty to federal criminal charges over the company’s role in the opioid epidemic, NYU officials announce.

“In view of yesterday’s US Department of Justice announcement of the settlement of federal criminal charges with Purdue Pharma and the civil settlement with members of the Sackler family related to the marketing of Purdue’s opioid products, NYU Langone Health will be removing the Sackler name from its Graduate Biomedical Institute, as well as other named programs,” the officials say in a written statement.

The deal announced yesterday does not release any of the Sackler family members who own Purdue Pharma from criminal liability, and a criminal investigation is ongoing. Family members have said they acted “ethically and lawfully.”

The move to remove the Sackler name from the NYU facility follows decisions by other academic and cultural institutions to distance themselves from the Sacklers, longtime philanthropists who have been blamed in thousands of lawsuits for fueling the opioid crisis by playing down the risks of the powerful painkiller OxyContin.

France’s Louvre Museum removed the Sackler name from a gallery last year, and Tufts University stripped the name from a building.

— AP