In 1972, a British company called Napp Pharmaceuticals developed a controlled-release formula, known as Continus, that the company first put to use with an asthma medicine. One day Twycross suggested to some Napp reps that their company might use Continus to develop a timed-release morphine pill. Napp eventually did so, and this proved important to this story. It offered doctors a new tool for treating pain in dying patients. Napp, also, is owned by Purdue, the laxative manufacturer that Arthur Sackler and his brothers had purchased in the 1950s.
