Purdue Pharma removes logo at HQ
STAMFORD — Purdue Pharma has removed the signs bearing its name outside its downtown headquarters, a move that could hint at the controversial OxyContin maker trying to reduce the visibility of a building increasingly targeted by protesters.
For years, Purdue’s ringed-and-underlined logo had adorned the front entrance and sidewalk markers around the One Stamford Forum building at 201 Tresser Blvd., where it has been based since 2000. But all those company-branded markers have come down in the past few weeks, and the firm has not said whether it would replace them.
A Purdue spokesman declined to comment Monday on the signs.
The changes do not apparently point to a rebranding. Purdue has neither redesigned its logo nor recently rolled out any related marketing campaigns.
As Purdue faces more than 1,000 lawsuits filed by cities and states that accuse the company of fueling the nation’s opioid crisis with deceptive marketing of drugs such as OxyContin, grassroots activists have demonstrated a number of times in the past year outside 201 Tresser.
On May 6, a Worcester, Mass., man, who said that he had struggled with addiction to OxyContin, demonstrated by setting up a skeleton-like sculpture of pill bottles outside the building.
“Look, this was me for 15 years,” Frank Huntley, the maker of the “Pill Man” sculpture, said in an interview. “This drug controlled me every day, and every minute of my day, OK? For the last six years I have been trying to save myself.”
Purdue responded in a statement that “we share Mr. Huntley’s concerns about the opioid-addiction crisis, and respect his right to peacefully express himself.”
Last August, a pair of demonstrations drew several hundred protesters. Many of them were family members and friends of those who had died of opioid overdoses; others said that they had survived addiction to pain drugs such as OxyContin.
“This has turned into a moment of national reckoning for Purdue,” Ryan Hampton, organizer of an Aug. 17 protest, said in an interview at that time. “We should be camped out at the headquarters every single day with a bull horn until we bleed them dry of every single dollar they can pay.”
On June 22, 2018, Stamford art-gallery owner Fernando Luis Alvarez and artist-activist Domenic Esposito installed a stained 800-pound spoon in the front driveway of 201 Tresser.
The sculpture represented a burnt heroin spoon; Esposito’s brother has grappled with opioid addiction.
Alvarez was arrested for his role in the protest, whose novelty drew international attention. He was later allowed to participate in an accelerated-rehabilitation program. He will be cleared of charges if he avoids contact with Purdue for one year.
A couple of weeks before the spoon protest, two Pennsylvania brothers held an evening demonstration in which they slide-projected messages onto 201 Tresser that condemned Purdue for its alleged misconduct.
All the recent protests have been peaceful. In the past year, neither the company nor Stamford police have reported any threats directed to 201 Tresser.
Amid the increasing litigation, Purdue’s headquarters presence has dwindled.
Last June, the company eliminated its sales force, a move that cost 175 employees their jobs. Another 175 positions were cut at the same time. About 90 of those laid off worked in Stamford.
Those cuts followed several hundred layoffs earlier in 2018.
About 550 remain with Purdue, including some 220 at 201 Tresser, according to the latest headcount provided by the firm. In the first quarter of 2018, the company had reported a total workforce of about 1,100.
Other tenants at 201 Tresser, an office tower that covers more than 500,000 square feet, include Charter Communications. The cable-andinternet giant — which is headquartered next door at 400 Atlantic St., and is building an office complex at 406 Washington Blvd. — last year leased about 53,000 square feet at 201 Tresser.
Members of the Sackler family, who own Purdue and are defendants in Connecticut’s lawsuit against the company, control the entities that own One Stamford Forum, according to mortgage-tracking firm Trepp.