November 20, 2009
In early November the Indiannapolis Star ran down some of the big payouts by the drugsters.
In January, Eli Lilly and Co. agreed to pay $1.4 billion to settle charges it illegally promoted its antipsychotic drug, Zyprexa, for unapproved uses. Nine whistle-blowers, former Lilly employees, split about $100 million of the settlement as their reward.
In September, Pfizer said it would pay $2.3 billion to settle charges that it illegally promoted numerous drugs, including the painkiller Bextra. Six whistle-blowers split about $102 million.
In October, AstraZeneca reached a $520 million agreement to settle investigations into illegal marketing of its psychiatric drug, Seroquel. Several whistle-blowers will split an undisclosed amount of money.
And last week, in a courtroom in Trenton, N.J., the latest case began, as a former sales worker at Janssen (owned by Johnson & Johnson) testified she was fired in 2004 for complaining about what she considered pressure to illegally promote the antipsychotic drug Risperdal for unapproved uses.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 active whistle-blower cases are backlogged at the Department of Justice, and about 200 of them deal with drug companies.
Of the top 20 False Claims Act cases, measured by the amount of money recovered, 12 involved judgments or settlements against pharmaceutical companies, accounting for billions of dollars in recoveries.
None of the fines or settlements resulting from these cases will mar the profitability of Big Pharma, which consistently ranks as one of the top two or three most profitable industries in the United States in Fortune 500 rankings.
In 2008, according to Fortune, profits of the top 10 drugmakers alone came to $50 billion–and that, of course, is after the huge payouts to corporate executives.
