Is Netflix’s Painkiller Based mostly on a True Story?

Netflix’s “Painkiller” tells the story of how one household constructed a enterprise that helped launch the opioid disaster, and the way they evaded actual penalties for a very long time even amid ongoing authorized struggles. The restricted collection, which premieres on Aug. 10, is predicated on Patrick Radden Keefe’s 2017 New Yorker article “The Household That Constructed an Empire of Ache” and Barry Meier’s e book “Ache Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America’s Opioid Epidemic,” which each chronicle how Purdue Pharma — led by the Sackler household — obscured the reality about their product OxyContin.

Are the Characters in “Painkiller” Based mostly on Actual Individuals?

“Painkiller” is a scripted collection, but it surely sticks intently to real-life occasions because it traces the rise and fall of the Sackler household’s empire. Most of its fundamental characters are fictional, together with Edie Flowers (Uzo Aduba), a lawyer from Virginia who, within the collection, performs a key function in investigating the Sacklers’ empire. One other certainly one of its fundamental plotlines follows Glen Kryger, a fictional mechanic who will get hooked on opioids after an harm, and a 3rd facilities West Duchovny as a fictional Purdue Pharma salesperson named Shannon Shaeffer.

Every certainly one of these characters, whereas not based mostly on actual folks, is a composite of various real-life tales. “Edie represents the entrance line,” director Pete Berg informed Netflix on July 11. “At the moment when OxyContin was simply beginning to be a factor and regulation enforcement everywhere in the nation was beginning to see deaths, crimes and capsule mills popping up, there was a gaggle of regulation enforcement who had been the primary wave to see the tragedy starting to unfold. They then needed to begin making an attempt to determine, ‘Effectively, what’s going on right here?'”

Among the characters featured within the collection are very actual, although, corresponding to Purdue Pharma executives Richard Sackler (Matthew Broderick) and Mortimer Sackler (John Rothman). In the meantime, Tyler Ritter performs Edie’s supervisor US Lawyer John Brownlee, who actually did work to efficiently convict Purdue Pharma of misbranding OxyContin in 2007, a narrative that shaped the premise of Hulu’s 2021 collection “Dopesick.”

The True Occasions That Impressed “Painkiller”

“Painkiller” traces the Sackler household’s story from the start, beginning with brothers Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond Sackler, who purchased an organization known as Purdue Frederick in 1952, per the New Yorker. Arthur shortly realized that there was actual cash to be made in advertising drugs to the general public, although, and certainly one of his early successes was Valium, which turned a phenomenon when it was launched in 1963. Shortly after Arthur’s dying in 1987, Mortimer and Raymond took over the corporate, which was renamed Purdue Pharma in 1991.

By 1996, certainly one of Purdue’s fundamental income sources, a capsule known as MS Contin that was meant for dying most cancers sufferers, was failing to show vital income. That yr, although, Purdue developed and patented a model of MS Contin known as OxyContin. Per the Monetary Instances, Richard noticed potential within the product and determined to focus the corporate’s vitality on it, declaring that his advertising strategy would set off “a blizzard of prescriptions that can bury the competitors.”

Purdue branded OxyContin as a drug that might cease every kind of ache, from arthritis to again aches. They claimed it was efficient for 12 hours at a time, and in addition stated it was not addictive except sufferers already had addictive personalities, per the Nationwide Library of Drugs. Their advertising techniques included flying medical doctors to costly conferences and inspiring gross sales reps to kind shut bonds with medical doctors, and their strategy was profitable, netting $3 billion by 2010, per the Los Angeles Instances, and incomes them a complete of $10 billion total, per NPR.

It quickly turned obvious that OxyContin’s results wore off earlier than the 12-hour mark, although, and that it was much more addictive than marketed. Quickly, many sufferers discovered themselves hooked on a drug their medical doctors had informed them was protected — and but Purdue continued to push the product, releasing larger dosages and persevering with to considerably downplay the drug’s addictive potential of their advertising efforts, as documented by the LA Instances. OxyContin’s success impressed different firms to start releasing related (and equally addictive) merchandise, and this unleashed an opioid epidemic that will declare lots of of hundreds of lives.

In 2007, the US Justice Division launched a legal investigation that culminated in Purdue’s three high executives pleading responsible to fraud for minimizing the risks of OxyContin of their advertising techniques. They had been in the end fined $635 million, per the LA Instances. In 2022, the household agreed to pay $6 billion as a part of a lawsuit with a number of attorneys basic, per Reuters, although the settlement additionally sought to grant the household immunity from present or future civil lawsuits and the Sackler household has admitted no wrongdoing. Nonetheless, the settlement was blocked by the Supreme Court docket on Aug. 10, per CNN.

In the meantime, per the CDC, the opioid disaster value the US $1 trillion in 2017, and greater than 564,000 folks have died from an overdose involving opioids between 1999 and 2020, based on the CDC, and dying charges have quintupled since 1999. The primary wave of the disaster started within the Nineties with the overprescription of artificial opioids like OxyContin, whereas medication like heroin and fentanyl rose to prominence within the 2010. Per the CDC, opioids had been the reason for almost 75 % of the 91,799 drug overdose deaths that occurred within the US in 2020.

The disaster wasn’t totally brought on by the Sacklers alone, although, a indisputable fact that “Painkiller” govt producer Eric Newman needed to emphasise within the collection. “It is definitely not simply [about] the Sacklers,” he stated. “It is the political machine. It is the pharmaceutical industrial complicated. You possibly can’t perceive the epidemic except you take a look at all the contributors. The individuals who did it, the individuals who let it occur, the individuals who suffered from it — and the individuals who blew the whistle on it.”

It is also onerous to know the human value of the opioid epidemic by studying statistics alone, however “Painkiller” additionally tries to focus on the real-life tales of individuals harmed by the disaster, and initially of each episode it options an actual one that has been personally affected by OxyContin. First, they learn a disclaimer reminding the viewers that the characters within the present aren’t actual — however then, briefly, they inform their very own story, reminding viewers that all-too-real occasions impressed each a part of what they’re about to look at.

“Painkiller” premieres on Netflix on Aug. 10.