US drug-maker Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of Oxycontin, has filed for bankruptcy. The money to be raised – estimated $10bn-$12bn (£8bn-£9.7bn), including a minimum cash contribution of $3bn from the Sackler family – will go towards settling the thousands of lawsuits that accuse the firm of fuelling the US opioid crisis. On average, 130 Americans die from an opioid overdose every day and more than 200,000 Americans have died from opioid-related overdoses in the last two decades. The lawsuits claim that Purdue and its owners, the billionaire Sackler family, aggressively marketed the prescription painkiller OxyContin and mislead doctors and patients over addiction and overdose risks.
Purdue Pharma was bought by the three late Sackler brothers in the 1950s and incorporated on 14 June 1991. That chart has an uber-enthusiastic Mars Jupiter in flashy Leo in a hard opposition to Saturn and an ultra-determined and ruthless square to Pluto. Plus the can-be-fanatical Uranus Neptune in Capricorn which has moved by Solar Arc to oppose the Mars Jupiter bringing about this bubble-bursting downfall.
The late Arthur Sackler, 22 August 1913, senior of the three, trained in psychiatry and medical advertising and has been blamed for helping “pioneer some of the most controversial and troubling practices in medicine: the showering of favors on doctors, the lavish spending on consultants and experts ready to back a drugmaker’s claims, the funding of supposedly independent commercial interest groups, the creation of publications to serve as industry mouthpieces, and the outright exploitation of scientific research for marketing purposes.” He became a well-known philanthropist and art collector and when he died his estate was estimated at $140 million.
He was a Sun Leo, with a pushily-confident Jupiter in money-magnet Capricorn opposition Pluto; with an unsentimental and hard-edged Saturn Mars in Gemini. His 9th Harmonic which can be humanitarian though also a symbol of greed was exceptionally strong as was his moulding-the-world-to-my-command 5H. He had died by the time his brothers Raymond and Mortimer put the stronger oxycontin on the manufacturing list but his methods of promotion prevailed. They were even more ruthlessly ambitious with a Mars trine Pluto trine Uranus, with Uranus opposition Saturn in Virgo for Raymond; and a Mars opposition Pluto for Mortimer.
Maybe Pluto in Capricorn is doing some good pulling down financial monoliths and exposing destructive greed.
Truly the US and Canada don’t learn from their mistakes. They’re allowing it to happen all over again as the former president of Purdue Pharma markets another drug: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/news/national/leadership-behind-canadian-medical-marijuana-company-has-an-oxycontin-past/article33200287/?__twitter_impression=true
Note also that the past year has been a node-reversal period for Purdue (north node currently in Cancer, in 1991 in Capricorn), and the power represented by the Neptune – north node conjunction in the incorporation chart. Solar eclipse conjunct that Neptune position in Jan. 2019, and the following lunar eclipse in July aligned with Moon in the incorporation chart, indicated the breaking point for this particular drug business and its public image.
There is a really good Guardian article on Sackler family I read last week, and it’s probably the third son, Raymond whose chart should be covered here. Apparently, Arthur Sackler quoted here died in 1987, and never benefitted of Oxycon. Even his heirs are “estrangered”, having sold stakes to Purdue Pharmaseutics for 22.3 million dollars.
Yes but Arthur wrote the template – without him all that followed wouldn’t have happened.
Thanks Marjorie. This news has already had a significant impact on the world of art and museums. The Sacklers are major sponsors. Apparently the Louvre has taped over the name “Sackler”, the NPG has withdrawn from a proposed donation, and so on. Will the Sackler Serpentine Gallery (2013) be renamed I wonder? And also wonder if this is a manifestation, in part, of the sextile between Saturn in Capricorn and Neptune in Pisces? Drugs and art and ‘karma’ equals international scandal?!
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/sackler-family
What the UK Banks Marjorie? Think you covered them before but note Uranus now in the UK’s 8th House
and surely Pluto has a lot, maybe even more startling work to do in Capricorn in its remaining 5 years there?
Thank you if you look into.
I LOVE seeing huge, corrupted organizations come crashing down like this. It gives a nod to astrology that Pluto in Capricorn is in cleaning mode and does work! It has been VERY interesting to see since Pluto entered Capricorn, hasn’t it? Probably the most clear instant of it tearing down corruption and exposing institutional sex abuse in almost absolute form as well as exposing the cultural problems we have from it. We just have to wait now for the god-awful governments turn next, though they will cling by their nails for the remotest power.