- Mortimer Sackler
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The Sackler Crossing at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Dr Mortimer David Sackler KBE (7 December 1916 – 24 March 2010) was an American physician and entrepreneur. With his brothers Arthur M. Sackler and Raymond Sackler he used his fortune from the pharmaceutical industry to become a prominent philanthropist.
The son an immigrant Brooklyn grocer, he was educated at Erasmus Hall High School, Brooklyn, and studied medicine at Anderson College of Medicine in Glasgow and Middlesex School of Medicine in Waltham, Massachusetts. After specializing in psychiatry, he joined with his brothers in acquiring small pharmaceutical companies and reviving their business. From 1952 they turned Purdue Pharma into a large privately owned business with products including OxyContin.
Using his fortune from pharmaceuticals he became a generous donor to charitable causes across the world.
In the UK Sackler's donations include:
- Sackler Library at the University of Oxford
- Sackler Laboratories at Reading University; the
- Sackler Musculoskeletal Research Centre, University College London
- Sackler Institute of Pulmonary Pharmacology at King's College London School of Medicine and Dentistry[1]
- Sackler Crossing – a walkway over the lake at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
- The forthcoming Sackler Serpentine Gallery, announced in November 2010[2]
Jointly with his brothers he endowed the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts University.
In 1995, Sackler was given an honorary knighthood (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his services to education.
His interest in philanthropy is continued after his death through the Dr Mortimer and Theresa Sackler Foundation[3] which he set up jointly with his British third wife Theresa Sackler née Rowling.
Its donations include the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science at Sussex University.[4]
References
- ^ King's College London School of Medicine and Dentistry
- ^ "A New Public Gallery: The Royal Parks and the Serpentine Gallery Agree to New Venue". www.artdaily.org. November 2, 2010. http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=42223. Retrieved November 2, 2010.
- ^ The Dr Mortimer and Theresa Sackler Foundation, Registered Charity no. 327863 at the Charity Commission
- ^ Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science
Sources
External links
Categories:- 1916 births
- 2010 deaths
- American philanthropists
- American physicians
- Erasmus Hall High School alumni
- Alumni of the University of Glasgow
- Honorary Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire
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