Netflix’s Painkiller has simply launched on the streaming platform and followers are obsessive about this new sequence primarily based on real-life occasions.
Painkiller, starring Uzo Aduba and Matthew Broderick launched on Thursday, August 10, 2023, on Netflix and has already caught the eye of followers who love the gritty present’s twists and turns. Netflix says that the present is a ‘fictionalized telling of actual occasions, explores a number of the origins and aftermath of the opioid disaster in America, highlighting the tales of perpetrators, victims, and truth-seekers whose lives are without end altered by the invention of OxyContin’. However how correct is that this present and what’s the true story behind Painkiller? Here’s what it’s essential to know…
Is Netflix’s Painkiller primarily based on a real story?
The present Painkiller relies on an actual pharmaceutical firm, Purdue Pharma. The enterprise ceased operation in 2021 however was principally owned by members of the Sackler household as descendants of Mortimer and Raymond Sackler.
In actual life, this firm was blamed for fuelling the opioid epidemic due to its broad distribution of OxyContin.
The story is definitely primarily based on an article that was printed within the New Yorker that regarded on the Sackler household’s affiliation with the mass manufacturing and distribution of ache reduction medication. The article was an investigative report by Patrick Radden Keefe which was printed in 2017 and titled, The Household That Constructed an Empire of Ache. The six-part sequence was additionally impressed by (and took its title from) Barry Meier’s 2018 guide, Ache Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America’s Opioid Epidemic. This story has additionally been advised in different TV exhibits comparable to Hulu’s drama miniseries Dopesick.
(Picture credit score: Netflix)
Who’re the Sacklers?
The Sackler household is an actual household who’re finest recognized for proudly owning Purdue Pharma which was based by John Purdue Grey in 1892. The household comes from generations of wealth donated generously to lots of the world’s main establishments, comparable to Yale College, the Guggenheim Museum, the Serpentine Gallery, and the Royal Academy.
When OxyContin was launched in 1996, it turned an enormous supply of the Sackler household’s wealth but in addition sparked plenty of lawsuits following the opioid disaster in America.
In 2007 the corporate admitted to misbranding OxyContin when a case was raised in regards to the security of the drug. Nonetheless, the household has not admitted to wrongdoing. Practically all 50 states have filed lawsuits towards Purdue and Sackler and the corporate proposed a $10 to $12 billion settlement.
(Picture credit score: Netflix)
The place is Richard Sackler now?
Matthew Broderick portrayed Dr Richard Sackler within the Netflix drama, however what occurred to the actual Richard Sackler after Purdue Pharma shut down?
Richard is at present 78 years previous and has an estimated value of $1.1billion (as of 2023). It has been reported that because the dissolution of the pharmaceutical firm and the quite a few lawsuits and payouts that the Sacklers needed to pay to the victims of the opioid disaster, the Sacklers have been promoting off their belongings.
It was reported in February 2023, by The New York Submit that Richard had bought off £30 million in property. The outlet claimed that Richard had additionally downsized to a smaller property in Florida. “Sackler has since downsized to a four-bedroom, seven-bathroom Boca Raton property, which he bought for $1.71 million in June 2021. The house spans 5,300 sq. toes,” reported the New York Submit.
