Dr. Sackler was the last survivor among three brothers — all psychiatrist sons of Brooklyn grocers — whose scientific and marketing skills transformed a tiny Greenwich Village company founded in the 19th century into a global pharmaceutical giant known as Purdue Pharma, now headquartered in Stamford, Conn.
Last year, the Sacklers were ranked 19th among “America’s richest families” by Forbes magazine, with assets estimated at $18 billion.
They were major benefactors who helped finance the Sackler Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (home to the Temple of Dendur), the Freer and Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, British cultural institutions, schools in Israel and scores of scientific, academic and cultural programs. [New York Times]