NYU Langone to Drop Sackler Name from Biomedical Institute

The decision comes after Purdue Pharma, founded by the Sackler family, announced it would plead guilty to federal criminal charges for its role in the opioid epidemic.

Max Kozlov

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New York University’s Langone Medical Center will remove the Sackler family name from its Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences after the US Department of Justice announced last week (October 21) that Purdue Pharma, founded by the Sackler family, would plead guilty to three criminal charges for its role in the opioid epidemic.

“Given the Sackler family’s association with Purdue Pharma and its role in encouraging opioid overuse, we view continuing to use the Sackler name as inconsistent with our institution’s values and incompatible with our mission,” university officials wrote in a statement, according to the Associated Press.

Purdue, which makes the painkiller OxyContin, will plead guilty to conspiring to defraud the United States and violating federal anti-kickback laws as part of a settlement for more than $8 billion. The deal does not release the company’s executives, nor the Sacklers, from criminal liability, and a criminal investigation is ...

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Meet the Author

Max Kozlov
Max is a science journalist from Boston. Though he studied cognitive neuroscience, he now prefers to write about brains rather than research them. Prior to writing for The Scientist as an editorial intern in late 2020 and early 2021, Max worked at the Museum of Science in Boston, where his favorite part of the job was dressing in a giant bee costume and teaching children about honeybees. He was also a AAAS Mass Media Fellow, where he worked as a science reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Read more of his work at www.maxkozlov.com.
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