used to roll out oxycontin in the 1990's is in many ways a game plan that arthur sackler and so he came up with a real kind of almost "mad men"-type series of very seductive tricks in order to try and persuade doctors that they should be prescribing his products. the side effects of a drug or the potential downsides of a drug were downplayed, the therapeutic benefits of a drug were way overplayed. william: purdue pharma initially made millions selling the morphine drug, ms-contin, used mainly with cancer patients. after his deh, arthur sackler's heirs sold off their stake in the company, but his two brothers -- mortimer and raymond -- remained involved. purdue's real blockbuster came in the late 1990's with oxycontin, which contains the addictive opioid oxycodone. purdue sealed the pills in a slow-release coating, which the company claimed would make them far less addictive. patrick: this was a hypothesis, a hypothesis that they didn't actually have any any real persuasive proof for. but it became a signature element of the marketing of oxycontin. william: another detail

and i was so intrigued by this so arthur sackler was the oldest of the original three brothers he wasays - he basically realized that the consumer, like you or me, that's not the person you're trying to win over what you want to win over is the doctor who's writing the prescriptions. and so he came up with all these ways of influencing doctors. and it's funny because, if you talk to doctors, if you know doctors, they'll often say, "oh, i would never be influenced by a pharmaceutical company." but to give an example with purdue pharma, this company spent $9 million a year just on buying food for doctors. and you have to assume that, you know, they were looking at whether or not they were going to get a return on their investment and there were studies on this if they go out and buy a steak dinner for a doctor, or even a lunch on the go, they can influence the way that doctor prescribes >> seth: you even talk about this in the book, but obviously you had to go into it expecting it it certainly came to pass to be true you received a great deal of blowback from the sackler family was it m

arthur sackler, the brother who revolutionized the marketing of pharmaceuticals died in 1987. heirs sold their stake in purdue shortly after. oxycontin wasn't developed until nearly a decade later. as for the descendents of the other two brothers, who declined our request for an interview, since 2008, purdue has paid them more than $10 billion. >> you've heard from the press about the sacklers. it is almost certainly wrong and highly distorted. >> reporter: david sackler, raymond's grandson, and dr. kathe sackler recently went public to defend the family's actions and its name, testifying remotely at a congressional hearing last september. >> will you apologize for the role you played in the opioid crisis? >> i have struggled with that question. i have asked myself over many years, i have tried to figure out is there anything that i could have done differently? i have to say, i can't -- there is nothing that i can find that i would have done differently based on what i believed and understood then. >> we don't agree on a lot on this committee. >> reporter: they heard no sympat

after arthur passed, the younger brothers and their descendents made billions off purdue pharma's painkiller oxycontin. "empire of pain" paints a stark picture of the sackleramily saying, i'm short on cash i might need $10 million to get me through that's normal in their universe. >> right this is mortimer sackler, jr he had a point where i guess he overextended himself, and need ed more cash he needed to go to the family trust. he said, i'm a little short on cash i need just $10 million. he said, $20 million, max. >> reporter: this is not your average family. >> it is not >> reporter: patrick says multiple sources compared the sacklers to the fictional family in hbo's "succession." >> i take over you two under me. >> under you >> can we think about it >> reporter: it is the rise and fall of a dynasty, a family that was a family of immigrants early on a century ago they wanted to make their mark make their mark in new york. they did end up having a huge impact, but i think, ultimately, a very tragic one. >> reporter: more than 2,000 lawsuits have accused purdue pharma of aggressively marketing its opioid painkiller oxycontin and contributing to the opioid