Tel Aviv University removes Sackler family, makers of OxyContin, from medical school's full name

JERUSALEM — Tel Aviv University announced on Wednesday that it has removed the Sackler family from the full name of its medical school after decades of donations from the makers of OxyContin.

The move came after years of petitions to pull the longtime donors' name from the campus while the Sacklers faced extensive lawsuits for their role in the opioid epidemic.

Last month an American court approved a plan for the maker of OxyContin to settle thousands of legal claims connected to the opioid epidemic while shielding the billionaire owners of Purdue Pharma, the Sackler family, from additional lawsuits.

The university said that “the Sackler family has kindly agreed to remove their name from the Faculty of Medicine” in order to allow new donors a chance to put their name on it, while it “gratefully acknowledges the multi-decade contributions of the Sackler family.”

The Sacklers have been donors to the university for 50 years, it said. According to an Associated Press investigation in 2019, the Sackler family had donated millions to academic institutions, including hundreds of thousands of dollars to Tel Aviv University — even as they faced growing scrutiny for helping fuel the opioid crisis in the United States.