# Mortimer Sackler **Mortimer D. Sackler** (December 7, 1916 – March 24, 2010) was the middle Sackler brother and co-owner, with his brothers Arthur and Raymond, of the Purdue Frederick Company (acquired 1952). He earned his medical degree at the University of Glasgow (after US medical-school antisemitism blocked him) and then at NYU, and worked alongside Raymond as the operational pharma brother through the post-1952 buildout of Purdue. Mortimer eventually relocated to Europe and oversaw the development of the **international Sackler pharma footprint** — the [[Mundipharma]] group of affiliated companies operating across Europe, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. The structure kept the international operations privately held by family trusts and largely out of US disclosure. He took Austrian and (briefly) Swiss citizenship and renounced his US citizenship in 1974, primarily for tax reasons. Mortimer was the principal builder of the family's **UK and European philanthropic profile** — endowed wings, galleries, and research positions at the Tate, Victoria & Albert, Royal Academy, Serpentine, King's College London, Oxford, Tel Aviv University, and others. He was **made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) in 1995** for charitable contributions (one source: Wikipedia). As an honorary award it did not carry the title "Sir," and it has not been formally rescinded. Mortimer was on the **[[Purdue Pharma]] board** through the period of [[OxyContin]]'s development and 1996 launch and the subsequent decade of aggressive marketing. He died in 2010 — nine years before Purdue's Chapter 11 filing — but his heirs (his third wife Theresa, his children Kathe, Ilene, and Mortimer D.A.) became named defendants in the wave of state-AG litigation that began in 2015. They are among the eight board-member heirs ("Side A" in the bankruptcy) paying the 2025 settlement. ## See Also - [[Sackler Family]] — the dynasty (in the bankruptcy, Mortimer's family is "Side A") - [[Arthur Sackler]] — eldest brother (his branch sold out in 1987 and is not a bankruptcy party) - [[Raymond Sackler]] — youngest brother - [[Purdue Pharma]] — the company - [[Mundipharma]] — the international affiliate network he built - [[Opioid Crisis Timeline]] — the broader story