By Dr John Virapen
Wondering what the pharma industry was upto in 2010? Here is a small snapshot... Am I overreacting? Note: off-label marketing is the practice of promoting pharmaceuticals for un-intended and unapproved indications.
Sept. 30, 2010 Novartis agreed to a $422.5 million settlement for marketing epilepsy medicine for unapproved uses and for paying kickbacks to doctors to prescribe it and five other drugs.
Sept. 15, 2010, Forest labs received its penalty, to the tune of $313 million, for marketing illegally unapproved with false claims drug Levothroid. The settlement also covered Forest's off-label use of Celexa for children's use.
Sept. 1, 2010, Allergan's $600 million Department of Justice settlement was broken into two parts: $375 million in fines and $225 million in civil penalties, all of which stemmed from its off-label use of Botox for headaches, pain management and cerebral palsy.
July 15, 2010, Elan the Irish pharma company received a $203.5 million fine for misbranding Zonegran a
treatment for epileptic seizures in adults over age 16, and promoting the drug for unapproved uses including mood stabilization, bipolar disorder, migraine headaches, weight loss and seizures in children.
April 29, 2010 J&J's, two of the troubled drug maker’s subsidiaries J&J received a $81million penalty for off label promotions of Topamax, an epilepsy drug.
April 27, 2010 AstraZeneca was hit with a $520 million penalty for its antipsychotic, Seroquel. The company misled doctors and patients about the drug's safety.
By then harm and billions in profits were made...
John Virapen
No comments:
Post a Comment