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The U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday, September 2, the "largest health care fraud settlement in its history." Pfizer Inc. with subsidiaries Pharmacia & Upjohn Company Inc. must pay $2.3 billion "to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from the illegal promotion of certain pharmaceutical products," according to the DOJ's news release. The pharmaceutical giant's story is a tale of seeming unrepentant profiteering, not through scarcity but misrepresentation.
All drug companies aren't bad. Who can discount the good humanity's seen through miracle drugs marketed ethically? But when drug companies are bad, they are very, very bad. Pfizer appears to keep falling into the same pit, having to pay government fines or settle lawsuits because it disregards FDA guidelines and patient health when marketing its wares.
Part of the breakdown on Pfizer's settlement from the DOJ press release:
Pharmacia & Upjohn Company has agreed to plead guilty to a felony violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act for misbranding Bextra with the intent to defraud or mislead. Bextra is an anti-inflammatory drug that Pfizer pulled from the market in 2005. Under the provisions of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, a company must specify the intended uses of a product in its new drug application to FDA. Once approved, the drug may not be marketed or promoted for so-called "off-label" uses – i.e., any use not specified in an application and approved by FDA. Pfizer promoted the sale of Bextra for several uses and dosages that the FDA specifically declined to approve due to safety concerns. The company will pay a criminal fine of $1.195 billion, the largest criminal fine ever imposed in the United States for any matter. Pharmacia & Upjohn will also forfeit $105 million, for a total criminal resolution of $1.3 billion.
In addition, Pfizer has agreed to pay $1 billion to resolve allegations under the civil False Claims Act that the company illegally promoted four drugs – Bextra; Geodon, an anti-psychotic drug; Zyvox, an antibiotic; and Lyrica, an anti-epileptic drug – and caused false claims to be submitted to government health care programs for uses that were not medically accepted indications and therefore not covered by those programs. The civil settlement also resolves allegations that Pfizer paid kickbacks to health care providers to induce them to prescribe these, as well as other, drugs. The federal share of the civil settlement is $668,514,830 and the state Medicaid share of the civil settlement is $331,485,170. This is the largest civil fraud settlement in history against a pharmaceutical company. (DOJ)
Here's video from MSNBC.
As reported by news sources, this is also the fourth time Pfizer has had to settle this type of case since 2002. For instance, in a 2004 San Francisco Chronicle article it is reported that "A division of Pfizer Inc., (Warner-Lambert) agreed to ... plead guilty to two felonies and pay $430 million in penalties to settle charges that it fraudulently promoted the drug Neurontin for a string of unapproved uses."
(It) admitted that it aggressively marketed the epilepsy drug by illicit means for unrelated conditions including bipolar disorder, pain, migraine headaches, and drug and alcohol withdrawal.
... Prosecutors said Warner-Lambert turned Neurontin into a blockbuster drug with tactics like paying doctors to listen to pitches for unapproved uses and treating them to luxury trips to Hawaii, Florida or the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. One doctor received almost $308,000 to tout Neurontin at conferences.
Doctors are free to prescribe drugs for uses not specified on their FDA- approved labels, but the FDA forbids drug companies from promoting them for those off-label uses. Prosecutors said Neurontin's manufacturers decided not to seek an expanded FDA label for the drug, an expensive process requiring solid proof from clinical trials. Instead, the company boosted sales through aggressive promotional strategies, even when scientific studies had demonstrated that it was not effective, the Justice Department said. (SFGATE, 2004)
Full disclosure: I was prescribed Neurontin in 2002 for an off-label use and it flipped me to a much darker place. Instead of lifting my depression, it exacerbated it. That's all I'll say because it's a painful subject. I was aware of the civil suit but elected not to join it.
This next piece of information reveals Pfizers shallow concern for the public and following the law.
"The size and seriousness of this resolution, including the huge criminal fine of $1.3 billion, reflect the seriousness and scope of Pfizer’s crimes," said Mike Loucks, acting U.S. Attorney for the
