Eli Lilly Finally Pays for Drug Marketing Abuses [1]
Submitted by Diane Farsetta [2] on
Eli Lilly [3] will pay the largest fine "in a health care case, and the largest criminal fine for an individual corporation ever imposed in a U.S. criminal prosecution of any kind." The pharmaceutical company will pay $1.42 billion to settle criminal and civil charges related to the marketing of its anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa [4]. Eli Lilly admitted to promoting Zyprexa for unapproved, "off-label" uses between 1999 and 2001, including for treatment of dementia in elderly populations [5]. Zyprexa is approved for treatment of schizophrenia and various types of bipolar disorder. Zyprexa "has been Lilly's top-selling drug, garnering the company more than $37 billion in world-wide sales since its U.S. approval in 1996," according to the Wall Street Journal [6]. In 2007, Eli Lilly tried to keep websites from posting copies [7] of its Zyprexa marketing documents. Internal documents also show that the company downplayed Zyprexa's side effects [8], including an increased risk of diabetes.