Summary of a story by By Rob Waters for Bloomberg:
Dec. 28 — A Johnson & Johnson unit misled Texas health officials about the risks of an antipsychotic drug to increase prescriptions, according to a whistleblower lawsuit joined by the state attorney general.
The suit claims that J&J’s Janssen Pharmaceutica unit caused Texas to overspend on Risperdal, the world’s second-best-selling schizophrenia drug last year. The case
stems from Texas prescribing guidelines directing state-funded doctors to give priority to newer, more expensive drugs.
The guidelines and deceptive marketing techniques boosted sales of Risperdal, raising costs for Texas and endangering patients, according to the complaint, which was secret until it was unsealed Dec. 15. The state is seeking unspecified damages. Risperdal sales were $10 billion in the U.S. from 2001 through 2005, according to IMS Health Inc.
The Texas complaint says the health department received as much as $6 million in contributions from Janssen and other parties to implement treatment guidelines under the Texas Medication Algorithm Project, known as TMAP. The guidelines were then exported to other states through training programs.
The largest contributors, according to the lawsuit, were Janssen Pharmaceutica and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a charity endowed by the co-founder of J&J.
The Princeton, New Jersey-based foundation provided three grants totaling $2.8 million to evaluate TMAP as part of an effort “to improve treatment of chronic disease,” said spokesman David Morse, in a phone interview this week.
Jansen is not the only drug company accused of fraudulently marketing their anti-psychotic drug:
Mississippi, Louisiana, Alaska and West Virginia sued Eli Lilly & Co. this year on behalf of their Medicaid health programs for the poor, saying the company fraudulently touted the antipsychotic Zyprexa for unapproved uses. Indianapolis-based Lilly settled about 8,000 personal-injury complaints for $700 million in 2005 and faces 4,000 more claims.
London-based AstraZeneca Plc, the maker of the third-best- selling antipsychotic, Seroquel, stands accused in more than 200 federal and state lawsuits of concealing the diabetes risk faced by users.
Bloomberg Article
Filed under: Eli Lilly, pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical marketing, whistleblower suits, zyprexa
