OxyContin billionaire is now trying to get you off OxyContin

Men sit passed out in a park where heroin users gather to shoot up in the Bronx.

(Image credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

published 7 September 2018

The man who made billions by selling the highly addictive drug OxyContin has received a patent to sell an opioid treatment.

Richard Sackler, the former chairman and president of the OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, is one of six inventors listed on a patent "for a new formulation of buprenorphine," Axios reported Friday. The invention is a variation of buprenorphine, a mild opiate that is often used as an OxyContin substitute and a common treatment for opioid addiction, the Financial Times reports. The patent was granted earlier this year.

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Marianne is The Weekâ€™s Social Media Editor. She is a native Tennessean and recent graduate of Ohio University, where she studied journalism and political science. Marianne has previously written for The Daily Beast, The Crime Report, and The Moroccan Times.

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