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The New York Times reports that Eli Lilly is in negotiation talks with the US Justice department to settle both civil and criminal investigations of the company’s marketing of its toxic diabetes-inducing antipsychotic, Zyprexa. If the settlement is reached, the Times reports, Lilly would pay
the biggest fine in history.
In a recent study in The Lancet, compared Risperdal an antipsychotic in the same class as Zyprexa, to placebo in calming aggression–which is the primary reason that Zyprexa and Risperdal are prescribed. They found the harmless placebo to be more effective:
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673608600720/abstract
The authors concluded: “Antipsychotic drugs should no longer be regarded as an acceptable routine treatment for aggressive challenging behaviour in people with intellectual disability.”
Underscoring the total failure by the
“But the company would be allowed to keep selling Zyprexa to Medicare and Medicaid, the government programs that are the biggest customers of the drug. Zyprexa is Lilly’s most profitable product and among the worlds best-selling medicines, with 2007 sales of $4.8 billion, about half in the
Indeed, Medicaid pays for about 70% go 80% of the antipsychotic drug prescriptions.
All anyone involved cares about is money–as they lend their government seal of approval that leads the lambs to slaughter.
Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav veracare@ahrp.org 212-595-8974
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/business/30cnd-drug.html?hp
THE NEW YORK TIMES
January 30, 2008
Lilly in Settlement Talks With
Eli Lilly and federal prosecutors are discussing a settlement of a civil and criminal investigation into the company’s marketing of the antipsychotic drug Zyprexa that could result in Lilly’s paying more than $1 billion to federal and state governments.
Several people involved in the investigation confirmed the settlement discussions. They insisted on anonymity because they have not been authorized to talk about the negotiations.
Zyprexa has serious side effects and is approved only to treat people with schizophrenia and severe bipolar disorder. But documents from Lilly show that between 2000 and 2003, Lilly encouraged doctors to prescribe Zyprexa to people with age-related dementia, as well as people with mild bipolar disorder who had previously been diagnosed only as depressed.
Although doctors can prescribe drugs for any use once they are on the market, it is illegal for drug makers to promote their medicines any uses not formally approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
Lilly may also plead guilty to a misdemeanor criminal charge as part of the agreement, the people involved with the investigation said. But the company would be allowed to keep selling Zyprexa to Medicare and Medicaid, the government programs that are the biggest customers for the drug. Zyprexa is Lilly’s most profitable product and among the world’s best-selling medicines, with 2007 sales of $4.8 billion, about half in the
Lilly would neither confirm nor deny the settlement talks.
“We have been and are continuing to cooperate in state and federal investigations related to Zyprexa, including providing a broad range of documents and information,” Lilly said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. “As part of that cooperation we regularly have discussions with the government. However, we have no intention of sharing those discussions with the news media and it would be speculative and irresponsible for anyone to do so.”
Lilly also said that it had always followed state and federal laws when promoting Zyprexa.
The Lilly fine would be distributed among federal and state governments, which spend about $1.5 billion on Zyprexa each year through Medicare and Medicaid.
The fine would be in addition to $1.2 billion that Lilly has already paid to settle 30,000 lawsuits from people who claim that Zyprexa caused them to suffer diabetes or other diseases. Zyprexa can cause severe weight gain in
many patients and has been linked to diabetes by the American Diabetes Association.
Prescriptions for Zyprexa have skidded since 2003 over concerns about those side effects. But the drug continues to be widely used, especially among severely mentally ill patients. Many psychiatrists say that it works better
than other medicines at calming patients who are psychotic and hallucinating. About four million Zyprexa prescriptions were written in the
Federal prosecutors in Philadelphia are leading the settlement talks for the government, in consultation with the Department of Justice headquarters in
Nina Gussack, who is representing Lilly at Pepper Hamilton, said she could not comment on the case. Joseph Trautwein, an assistant
attorney in the Eastern District of
While a settlement has not been concluded and the negotiations could collapse, both sides want to reach an agreement, according to the people involved in the investigation. Besides the escalating pressure of the
federal criminal inquiry, Lilly faces a civil trial scheduled for March in
While expensive for Lilly, the settlement would end a four-year federal investigation and remove a cloud over Zyprexa. While Zyprexa prescriptions are falling, its overall dollar volume of sales is rising because Lilly has raised Zyprexa’s price about 40 percent since 2003.
Federal prosecutors have been investigating Lilly for its marketing of Zyprexa since 2004, and state attorneys general since 2005. The people involved in the investigations said the inquiries gained momentum after
December 2006, when The New York Times published articles describing Lilly’s multiyear efforts to play down Zyprexa’s side effects and to promote the drug for conditions other than schizophrenia and severe bipolar disorder – a practice called off-label marketing.
Internal Lilly marketing documents and e-mail messages showed that Lilly wanted to convince doctors to prescribe Zyprexa for patients with age-related dementia or relatively mild bipolar disorder.
In one document, an unidentified Lilly marketing executive wrote that primary care doctors “do treat dementia” but leave schizophrenia and bipolar disorder to psychiatrists. As a result, “dementia should be first message” to primary-care doctors, according to the document, which appears to be part of a larger marketing presentation but is not marked more specifically. Later, the same document says that some primary care doctors “might prescribe outside of label.”
In late 2000, Lilly began a marketing campaign called Viva Zyprexa and told its sales representatives to suggest that doctors prescribe Zyprexa to older patients with symptoms of dementia.
The documents were under federal court seal when The Times published the articles, and Judge Jack B. Weinstein of
The settlement negotiations in
Last fall, the two sides were close to a deal in which Lilly would have paid less than $1 billion to settle the case, which at the time consisted only of a civil complaint.
Then Justice Department lawyers in