Raymond Sackler

Early life

Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1920, Sackler was educated at Erasmus High School, and attended New York University where he received a B.S. in 1938. Due to Jewish quotas imposed by the major U.S. medical schools during that era, he pursued medical education starting at Anderson College of Medicine (Glasgow, Scotland). When World War II began, he stayed in Scotland and volunteered in the British Home Guard and also served as a plane spotter. He returned to the U.S. completed his studies at the Middlesex University School of Medicine (a school on the site of current day Brandeis University in Waltham, MA.) where he received an M.D. degree in 1944. Sackler married Beverly Feldman in 1944. They have two sons, Richard S. Sackler and Jonathan D. Sackler.

Medical career

Raymond Sackler was certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (P) in 1957, and was a Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Sackler, with his two brothers Arthur and Mortimer Sackler, co-founded the Creedmoor Institute for Psychobiological Studies in New York City, where they engaged in research in the psycho-biology of schizophrenia and manic depressive psychosis. They received two awards from the Medical Society of the State of New York: the First Award for Scientific Research; and one year later, Honorable Mention for Scientific Research.

Pharmaceutical business

With lessons learned in research, Sackler and his brother Mortimer transitioned into the development of numerous pharmaceutical, manufacturing, and research companies, Sackler being closely associated with the now global reach of Purdue Pharma, LLP in the United States, Canada and Mundipharma, Ltd. in Europe, Asia and Africa.

Purdue Pharma, which is 100% privately owned and operated by the Sackler family (a family worth $13 billion, including Raymond Sackler) is well known for successful research and development, and particularly for marketing the opiate drug Oxycontin and related compounds.

Philanthropy

Sackler and his wife Beverly, directly and through the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundations, initiated and sustained major research programs in the biomedical, biological, physical and engineering sciences through the establishment/endowment of schools, institutes, centers, departments, endowed chairs, professorships, fellowships, research awards in the biomedical and physical sciences, and lectureships at academic institutions around the world. Sackler became acquainted with scientific and academic experts such as Nobel Laureates Joshua Lederberg (Rockefeller University), Emilio G. Segrè (UC Berkeley), Julius Axelrod (NIH), Phillip Sharp (MIT) and Martin Chalfie (Columbia University). In support of the arts, the Sacklers were recognized by the British Museum (Raymond and Beverly Sackler Wing, the Ancient Near East and Egypt), the Louvre, and, together with his two brothers, the Sackler Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, which houses the Temple of Dendur and study centers for Chinese and Japanese Art History.

Together with his brothers, in 1980 Sackler established doctoral educational programs at two US Universities:

He and his wife Beverly established the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Medical Research Centre at the University of Cambridge, School of Clinical Medicine (UK) and were sponsors at that medical school of the MB/PhD Program and a new cancer research program, as well as a visiting professorship/lecturership in the medical sciences.

The Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel-Aviv University, sponsored conjointly with Sackler's two brothers in 1964, includes the Sackler School of Medicine, the Maurice and Gabriel Goldschleger School of Dental Medicine and the Sackler Institute of Molecular Medicine. The initial sponsorship at Tel Aviv University has grown substantially over the past three decades through expanding support from Sackler and his wife Beverly, including the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences that includes schools, institutes, centers and departments in physics, mathematics, chemistry, geophysics and astronomy/planetary sciences, as well as an Institute of Biophysics, a Chair in the Nanosciences and a Chair in Bioinformatics.

Tel Aviv University also serves as the institutional sponsor of two prizes endowed by Sackler and his wife Beverly:

Sackler and his wife Beverly established the Institute of Advanced Studies at Tel Aviv University with Mortimer participating.

At Leiden University in the Netherlands Sackler supported the Laboratory for Astrophysics named after him. He also gave Leiden University an endowment for the establishment of the Raymond and Beverly Chair of American History.

Sackler was the moving force, one of the founders, and oversaw the implementation of the Sackler School of Medicine New York State / American Program chartered by the New York State Board of Regents that provides a four-year medical education program for American students at the Sackler School of Medicine of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University.

Convergence Research Programs In the past decades, Sackler and his wife Beverly have created, supported and endowed numerous programs that embrace the concept of convergence in scientific research. These programs include:

In 2003, the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Distinguished Lecture in the Medical Sciences series was established in collaboration with the Academy of Medical Sciences. Previous speakers have included Aaron Klug, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Richard P. Lifton.

In addition, to promote national and international scientific collaboration, Sackler and his wife Beverly established in 2008, The Raymond and Beverly Sackler USA-UK Scientific Forum, to foster collaboration between the National Academy of Sciences (USA) and the Royal Society (UK).

In 2010, The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation Science Fund in honor of Ralph J. Cicerone, at the National Academy of Sciences (USA) was established to provide support of scientific programs independent of governmental requests/funding.

In 2011, The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Distinguished Lecture Series in Neuroscience was established at Cardiff University.

Astrophysics: Sackler and his wife Beverly have supported research in astronomy, physics, and astrophysics at many world-renowned institutions. At the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, they established International Conferences held every other year. At the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University (UK), their support of the Deep Sky Initiative Project resulted in the design, development and construction of an infrared camera and infrared spectrometer superior to those in existence, thereby significantly improving the performance of land-based telescopes. They also endowed a visiting fellowship program at the Institute of Astronomy. At Christ’s College, Trinity College, Churchill College and Magdalene College, the Sacklers endowed research fellowships at each college. At the Leiden University (Netherlands), they have sponsored the continuation of the Observatory Laboratory for research simulating conditions in outer space; they also endowed a Visiting Astronomer/Astrophysicist program. As a tribute to Raymond and Beverly Sackler's support of research in astrophysics and astronomy, Asteroid 7690 Sackler was named in their honor in a joint citation by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Leiden University Observatory. At IHÉS, in France, the Sacklers endowed the Raymond and Beverly Visiting Chair for Theoretical Physics and Cosmology in 2012. They endowed distinguished lectures in physics at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, as well as a visiting professorship in Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Oslo, Norway.

Honors and awards (partial list)