Who sat on Purdue's board, and who ran the company?

analysisPurdue Pharma L.P. had no board of its own: it was managed through the board of directors of its general partner, Purdue Pharma Inc. (PPI), a New York corporation. The District Court said so in its decision of 16 December 2021, and the debtors' Disclosure Statement of 1 July 2025 states that PPI's board effectively manages the debtors, naming their senior management at that date as Craig Landau, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Marc L. Kesselman, Executive Vice President and General Counsel. In sworn declarations of March and April 2019 in Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Purdue Pharma L.P., each of the directors sued there stated that the seat was on PPI's board and that the partnership 'has no directors'. Board seats followed PPI's share classes: Class A Directors were elected by the Class A shareholders, Class B Directors by the Class B shareholders and At-Large Directors by both classes jointly. ^{1 2 3}

analysisThe District Court found that from about 1993 until 2018 at least six or seven members of the Sackler family always sat on PPI's board and that independent directors never equalled or outnumbered the family directors. Two brothers had led the company: the court recorded that Mortimer D. Sackler, who died in 2010, served as co-chief executive officer of Purdue with his brother Raymond Sackler, who died in 2017, though the court's collective term 'Purdue' gives no start dates and leaves open which company, in earlier decades possibly The Purdue Frederick Company, employed them. Mortimer's branch of the family is known as Side A and Raymond's as Side B. ¹

analysisThe dates below record who held a seat and when; a board seat is not in itself evidence of any director's personal conduct. The family directors' terms are given in a tenure list in Addendum A to the United States' 2020 civil settlement agreement with members of the family, and each director confirmed the end date in a sworn declaration in the Massachusetts case. On Side B, Raymond's sons Richard S. Sackler and Jonathan D. Sackler served from 2 October 1990 to 24 July 2018 and to 8 December 2018 respectively; Raymond's wife Beverly Sackler sat from about 1993 to October 2017 (17 October 2017 in her declaration), and Richard's son David A. Sackler from 19 July 2012 to 14 August 2018. David Sackler declared that after 15 May 2007 he was not an employee or officer of PPI, or an employee, officer or director of the partnership. ^{2 3 1}

analysisOn Side A, three of Mortimer D. Sackler's children sat on the board: Kathe A. Sackler from 2 October 1990 to 27 September 2018, Mortimer D.A. Sackler from 15 January 1993 to 16 January 2019, the latest end date of any family director, and Ilene Sackler Lefcourt in two terms, from 2 October 1990 to 4 February 2005 and from 16 May 2008 to 9 October 2018, a gap that the District Court's description of nearly 30 years on the board does not mention. Mortimer D. Sackler's wife, Theresa E. Sackler, served from 15 January 1993 to 7 September 2018. ^{2 3 1}

analysisRichard Sackler also held executive and board-chair roles. The District Court found, on the 2021 hearing testimony, that he was president of Purdue from 2000 to 2003, co-chair of PPI's board from 2003 to 2007 and chair from about 2008 until 2010 or 2011, without naming the company of which he was president beyond its collective term. Other accounts differ. Rhode Island's Third Amended Complaint, submitted on 22 March 2022, alleges, partly on information and belief, that he was President of Purdue Pharma from 1999 to 2003 and Co-Chairman from 2003 through 2014, joined Purdue in 1971 as an assistant to his father Raymond, headed marketing and research, oversaw the launch of OxyContin and is a board member of 'Purdue Pharma, L.P.' and Rhodes Technologies, in both of which it says he holds an ownership interest. A House committee staff memorandum of 8 December 2020 listed him as 'Former President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board of Directors, Purdue Pharma L.P.', with Mortimer D.A. and Kathe Sackler as former vice presidents and board members and David Sackler as a former board member of the partnership; these are staff titles, not a corporate record, and the court described him as president, co-chair and chair, not as chief executive. Against these accounts stand the DOJ tenure list, the partnership's lack of directors and his own March 2019 declaration that he left PPI's board on 24 July 2018 and held no employee or officer post after 15 May 2007. Rhode Island was one of the states that, with the debtors and the Sacklers, filed the settlement approved by the Bankruptcy Court on 10 March 2022, twelve days before this complaint was submitted, and the retained records contain no ruling on the complaint's account of his titles. ^{1 4 3 5 6}

analysisSome family directors were also officers until 2007. Jonathan and Kathe Sackler each declared that they had been Senior Vice President of both PPI and the partnership until 31 May 2007, and Mortimer D.A. Sackler that he had been Vice President of both until that date; none of them, they stated, was otherwise an employee or officer of either company after 15 May 2007. ³

analysisA commercial aggregator's undated copy of Connecticut registry data for PPI lists as directors all eight of these family members and Raymond R. Sackler, together with the non-family directors Cecil B. Pickett, Paulo F. Costa, Peter Boer and Ralph Snyderman. The list is not the registry itself and mixes people whose service ended at different times, since Raymond Sackler died in 2017 and Mark Timney, listed as president and chief executive officer, left in June 2017, so it does not show who held office at any particular date; Raymond Sackler's name does not appear in the DOJ settlement's list of family directors. ⁷

analysisFive non-family directors joined the board between 2008 and 2012, according to their own declarations in the Massachusetts case. Peter Boer declared that he had been a PPI director since 18 April 2008; Connecticut's 2019 complaint names him as Frank Peter Boer. Judith C. Lewent declared that she served from 20 March 2009 to 31 December 2014, while Connecticut's complaint gives March 2009 to October 2015, and neither record explains the difference. Cecil B. Pickett, a former President of Research and Development at Biogen, declared service from 21 January 2010 and is listed in the July 2025 Disclosure Statement as a Class A Director appointed in January 2010; Paulo Costa declared service from 25 April 2012 to 30 January 2018 and Ralph Snyderman from 1 August 2012 to 30 October 2017. None of them was a director of the partnership. PPI's Florida registry record lists Boer among its directors, but he is not among the six directors named in the July 2025 Disclosure Statement, so that entry may be out of date, and no retained record dates the end of his term. ^{1 2 3 4}

analysisThe New York Attorney General's First Amended Complaint, filed as an exhibit to a letter rogatory on 13 September 2019, alleges that Boer 'was no stranger to Purdue or the Sacklers' when he joined Purdue's board, having served on the board of Rhodes Technologies, the family's Rhode Island opioid manufacturing company, and directed Purdue's oxycodone pipeline there for a decade. Boer was not a defendant in that action, and no retained registry or company record confirms the Rhodes seat or its dates. ⁵

analysisThe State of Connecticut's amended complaint of 6 May 2019 alleges that the Sacklers always held the controlling majority of the board, which gave them full power over Purdue, and that Boer, Lewent, Pickett, Costa and Snyderman 'did not act independently from the Sacklers', voting with them on every one of the hundreds of votes during their tenures; it adds that the individual defendants knew of and failed to stop the deceptive practices it describes and that Craig Landau had acknowledged the board was a de facto CEO. These are the State's allegations. The District Court separately found that the family directors always outnumbered the independent directors, but the retained records contain no ruling on the claims of full power, of voting with the family or of knowledge. No answer to the complaint itself is in the retained records; in the parallel Massachusetts case the five directors each declared that, to the best of their knowledge, no PPI board meeting took place in Massachusetts and that they did not direct Purdue's management, sales representatives or marketing there. Connecticut later joined the settlement with the debtors and the Sacklers approved on 10 March 2022 and the $7.4 billion Purdue–Sackler settlement that took effect on 1 May 2026; Exhibit X to that settlement lists Boer, Costa and Snyderman among the Certain Shareholder Released Parties, as current or former directors, managers or officers of a jointly owned entity in Purdue Pharma L.P.'s ownership chain, and its releases bind only claimants who opt in. ^{1 2 3 4 5 6}

analysisThe same complaint describes Russell Gasdia as Purdue's Vice President of Sales and Marketing and alleges that the directors Richard, Jonathan, Mortimer D.A., Kathe, Beverly and Theresa Sackler, Ilene Sackler Lefcourt, Boer and Lewent authorised him to hire a staff member to promote Purdue opioids electronically through the 'Partners Against Pain' website, and that in 2013 Gasdia and other staff told the board that opioid savings cards kept patients on Purdue's opioids longer and were being pushed through sales visits, online and by email. Gasdia, a defendant in the Massachusetts case though not in Connecticut's, has no response in the retained records; the family directors named declared in Massachusetts that they did not direct sales representatives' visits, savings-card emails or other marketing there. No ruling on these allegations is in the retained records; Connecticut later joined the March 2022 settlement and the settlement that took effect on 1 May 2026. ^{1 2 3 4}

analysisNew York's First Amended Complaint in the Suffolk County opioid litigation, filed with a September 2019 letter rogatory, likewise alleges that Purdue has been controlled by members of the extended Sackler family, the ultimate intended beneficiaries of virtually all its profit distributions, and that PPI's board functioned as the nexus of decision-making for all of Purdue, meeting in New York or Connecticut under its by-laws; its individual defendants were the living family members who had served on that board. These are the State's allegations, not findings. Certain defendants moved to dismiss in 2019, and four family members appeared at an August 2019 status conference without conceding that they were proper parties and reserving all defences, including lack of personal jurisdiction for Kathe and Theresa Sackler; a press report on the later settlement says the family has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. The District Court recorded that state courts denied the Sackler defendants' motions to dismiss in at least three cases, citing an order of 21 June 2019 in the Suffolk County litigation, and on 1 May 2026 the New York Attorney General announced that Purdue had shut down under the bankruptcy plan, as part of the $7.4 billion settlement with members of the family, and that New York expects up to $250 million from the settlement with Purdue and the Sacklers. ^{7 8 9 10}

analysisEach family director's departure is dated above. The District Court found that many family members stepped down during 2018 and that the last resignation took effect at the beginning of 2019; the Disclosure Statement says the last family director resigned in January 2019, and the DOJ tenure list gives 16 January 2019 as the end of Mortimer D.A. Sackler's term, the latest of them. In written testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform dated 17 December 2020, Landau said it had been almost two years since any family member served on the board, counted accepting the family's resignations among the changes of his tenure and said that Purdue had added a new 'independent Chairman of the Board' in 2018 and three other 'previously unaffiliated directors' with restructuring and pharmaceutical industry experience in 2019. ^{1 2 3 4}

analysisThe new board was assembled from July 2018. Purdue Pharma L.P. announced on 24 July 2018, with immediate effect, that Robert S. 'Steve' Miller had been named chairman 'of Purdue', and the Disclosure Statement lists him as Chairman of PPI's board appointed in July 2018, the board being PPI's because the partnership had none; an online profile gives 1 July 2018 as the start. Anthony Roncalli became a Class B Director in December 2018, Michael Cola a Class A Director in February 2019 and an At-Large Director in July 2019, Kenneth Buckfire an At-Large Director in May 2019 and John S. Dubel an At-Large Director in July 2019; with Cecil Pickett they were the six directors listed in the Disclosure Statement of 1 July 2025, which says that a majority of them have no prior connection to the Sackler Families. It does not say which; its biographies disclose Roncalli's advisory work for the debtors and the independent associated companies as a former partner at Norton Rose Fulbright LLP, and Pickett's former seats on the boards of independent associated companies, which he gave up on or before 9 August 2018. ^{2 5 6 7}

analysisThe Disclosure Statement's biographies describe careers in restructuring and the drug industry. Miller had been Vice Chairman and CFO of Chrysler, Chairman and CEO of Delphi Corp. and non-executive chairman of American International Group, from 2010 to 2015 according to Purdue's 2018 release; an online profile adds that he was Delphi's chief executive from July 2005 to October 2009, presiding over its restructuring in bankruptcy, and CEO of Hawker Beechcraft from February 2012 to 2013. In 2025 Buckfire was President of Miller Buckfire & Co., LLC, which he co-founded in 2002, and a Vice-Chairman of Stifel Financial Corporation's Institutional Banking Group. Dubel founded the turnaround firm Dubel & Associates, LLC in 1999 and had been chief executive of Financial Guaranty Insurance Company and of SunEdison, Inc., whose Form 8-K records his appointment as chief executive on 22 June 2016, when he was already its Chief Restructuring Officer. Cola had been chief executive of Avalo Therapeutics Inc (formerly Cerecor) and of Aevi Genomic Medicine and President of Specialty Pharmaceuticals at Shire plc. ^{5 2 6 8}

analysisPPI's Florida registry record, whose latest annual report was filed on 28 February 2026, lists Craig Landau as President and Chief Executive Officer, Terrence Ronan as Treasurer and CFO, Marc L. Kesselman as Secretary, Robert S. Miller as Chairman of the Board and Ken Buckfire, John S. Dubel, Michael Cola, Peter Boer, Cecil Pickett and Anthony M. Roncalli as directors; the record became inactive after a withdrawal filed on 1 October 2026. It reflects what the corporation last reported and may not be current, since it still names Boer, who is absent from the 2025 board list. The confirmed bankruptcy plan, which took effect on 1 May 2026, dissolved the boards of all the debtors, PPI's included, deemed their members to have resigned and made a PPLP Liquidator the sole director and sole officer of the liquidating debtors, succeeding to PPI's powers as the partnership's general partner, to wind them up. ^{7 2 9 10 11}

analysisFrom May 2019 decisions on dividends, distributions and dealings with the family were reserved to a committee from which family members were barred. On 14 May 2019 PPI's shareholders adopted an Amended and Restated Shareholders' Agreement and PPI filed a Restated Certificate of Incorporation creating a Transaction Committee, chaired by the independent Chairman of the Board and otherwise made up of directors appointed by a majority of the board, none of them a member of the Sackler Families; it received exclusive authority over all dividends by PPI and all distributions by Purdue Pharma L.P. to its partners, and authority over transactions with the Class A and Class B shareholders and their affiliates. On 3 September 2019 the shareholders renamed it the Special Committee and an amended certificate added authority over 'Affiliate Litigation', meaning claims between the debtors and the Sackler Families, their trusts and other Sackler-related entities, including the independent associated companies, so that no dividend, distribution, affiliate transaction or affiliate litigation could proceed without its approval; any At-Large Director could now chair it, and family members remained barred. ¹

analysisThe Disclosure Statement names Chairman Miller and the At-Large Directors Buckfire, Cola and Dubel as the committee's members, with Dubel as its chairman, and states that none of them had any prior relationship with either family; the District Court likewise recorded that Dubel, appointed to the board in July 2019, chaired the committee investigating potential claims against the Sacklers. A letter agreement of 6 November 2019 protected them from removal by the shareholders: PPI's shareholders irrevocably delegated to PPI's General Counsel, as their proxy, the right to appoint and remove the Chairman and the At-Large Directors, to be exercised on the vote of two-thirds of the directors in office and disregarding the vote of any director whose removal is in question. In its modified bench ruling of 20 November 2025 on confirmation of the final plan, the Bankruptcy Court, citing Dubel's declaration, described the committee as formed in May 2019, which matches the creation of the Transaction Committee, with exclusive authority over transactions and claims involving the Sackler Parties, and noted that a court-appointed independent examiner selected by the DOJ had found that it 'acted independently' and was not controlled or influenced by them. ^{1 2 3}

analysisDay-to-day management lay with chief executives who served both companies. John Stewart declared that he was chief executive officer of Purdue Pharma L.P. and PPI from June 2007 to December 2013, and Mark Timney, previously President of Merck US, from January 2014 to June 2017; Purdue's release of 22 June 2017 says Timney had spent 15 years with Merck before joining. The same release announced that 'The Board of Directors of the independently associated worldwide Purdue/Napp/Mundipharma network of companies' had appointed Dr. Craig Landau President and CEO for the U.S. operations, Purdue Pharma L.P., with immediate effect, and that Timney was leaving. It does not mention PPI's board, and no retained record identifies that network board's legal form or members. ^{1 2 3}

analysisLandau had joined Purdue Pharma L.P. in 1999, two years after entering the industry, and became its Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of R&D Innovation, Clinical and Medical Affairs; he declared that he was Chief Medical Officer and Head of Clinical Development until 2013. From July 2013 to June 2017 he was President and CEO of Purdue Pharma (Canada), a separate company that the District Court described as an independent associated company ultimately owned by the Sackler family and not a debtor, and the June 2017 release said he would retain responsibility for it after his appointment in the United States. In February 2019 he declared that he had been chief executive of both PPI and the partnership since June 2017, the start date that his House testimony of December 2020 and the Disclosure Statement of July 2025 also give; the Disclosure Statement adds that since 2022 he had also overseen the debtors' generic medicine business, Rhodes Pharmaceuticals L.P. ^{4 3 5 6 7}

analysisUnder Landau, Purdue stopped promoting opioids through sales representatives. He declared that in February 2018, at his direction, Purdue ceased deploying sales personnel to promote its opioids to prescribers, and he told the House committee in 2020 that the company had eliminated its entire opioid sales force and later committed, in a voluntary injunction in the bankruptcy, to continue that restraint. A local press report of July 2018 said Purdue had announced the month before the elimination of its already reduced sales force, cutting 175 jobs, with another 175 positions cut at the same time, leaving about 550 employees, some 250 at the Stamford headquarters, against about 1,100 four months earlier; these are the newspaper's figures, not a company filing, and they differ from the later headcounts in the Disclosure Statement. ^{4 7 8}

analysisLandau was himself sued. A December 2019 wire-service report said he was named as a defendant in suits by Colorado, Massachusetts, five local governments and more than 100 hospitals, and summarised the two states' allegations that he blamed opioid dangers on patients, had his sales team encourage more prescribing without disclosing addiction risks, pushed opioids for elderly and opioid-naive patients, falsely presented reformulated OxyContin as safe and pushed longer prescribing; these are the states' allegations as reported, and no finding against him personally is in the retained records. Purdue denied the claims against it and Landau asked the courts to dismiss the complaints against him: his February 2019 Massachusetts declaration says many of the allegations against him are not supported by, and in some instances are contradicted by, the documents the Commonwealth cited, that he did not oversee opioid sales or marketing in his two earlier executive posts, that he had no direct day-to-day sales or marketing role as CEO and that he had the company stop marketing opioids to prescribers about eight months into his tenure. After the bankruptcy filing the Bankruptcy Court's preliminary injunction of 11 October 2019 extended the halt on litigation to the debtors' 'Related Parties', but the retained records do not say whether Landau was among them. The same report described Purdue's request, opposed by the attorneys general of about half the states, to pay Landau a bonus of half his $2.6 million base salary, which Purdue said it had capped and split; the report predates the hearing and its outcome is not in the retained records. ^{9 4 10}

analysisA November 2019 trade press report said that Timney, named in dozens of lawsuits against the OxyContin maker, stood to earn over $85 million in Novartis's $9.7 billion purchase of The Medicines Company; only the opening of the article is available, and it does not state his position at that company or the basis of the payment. In his declaration supporting the former executives' motion to dismiss the Massachusetts complaint, Timney stated that many of its allegations against him were not supported by, and in some instances were contradicted by, the documents the Commonwealth cited. ^{11 2}

analysisThe legal function changed hands in 2018. Purdue Pharma L.P.'s release of 24 July 2018 announced that Marc L. Kesselman had been appointed Senior Vice President and General Counsel, reporting to Landau, in succession to Maria Barton, who had led the law department and would stay for a brief transition; a same-day press report, the only source for these dates, says Barton had been promoted to general counsel in February 2017 a year after joining. The Disclosure Statement gives Kesselman's July 2018 appointment as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Purdue Pharma and, in July 2025, his title as Executive Vice President, General Counsel; a professional association's biography of him adds a later promotion to Chief Legal Officer and EVP Strategy & Corporate Affairs, and PPI's Florida record lists him as Secretary. He came from general counsel posts at YUM! Brands, Dean Foods (from January 2015) and PepsiCo's food businesses and, before that, served as General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (2006–2008), Deputy General Counsel of the White House Office of Management and Budget (2003–2006) and earlier a lawyer at the Department of Justice. ^{12 5 8 13 14 15}

analysisJon Lowne, who joined Purdue in 1995 as Senior Internal Auditor and was Controller from 2005 to July 2017, became acting Chief Financial Officer in August 2017 and CFO of Purdue Pharma L.P. in March 2018; as Authorized Person he signed the partnership's Chapter 11 petition and its declaration under penalty of perjury on 15 September 2019, and his sworn first-day declaration was filed the next day. Earlier officers appear in narrower records: James J. Dolan, Senior Vice President, Licensing and Business Development, signed a strategic alliance dated 19 November 2008 with Infinity Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for Purdue Pharmaceutical Products L.P. through its general partner Purdue Pharmaceutical Products Inc., and an undated aggregator copy of Connecticut registry data lists Timney as PPI's president and chief executive officer, Edward B. Mahony and Stuart D. Baker as executive vice presidents and Robin Abrams as a vice president, without dates of appointment or departure. ^{16 17 18 19}