Supreme Court Rejects Pfizer In Neurontin Off-Label Marketing

In a setback to Pfizer, the US Supreme Court has left intact a $142 million award to Kaiser Foundation Health plan for marketing the Neurontin epilepsy drug for unapproved uses (back story). The court also allowed two other lawsuits – one brought by Aetna, the large insurer, and a class action that was filed on behalf of union health plans and other insurers – to proceed (see this). The decision opens Pfizer to potentially still more payouts, especially if additional lawsuits are filed by other insurers or health plans that make similar claims. The lawsuits charged that Pfizer engaged in racketeering and induced physicians to prescribe the drug for unapproved uses. The litigation was prompted after the drugmaker agreed to a $430 million settlement in 2004 with the US Department of Justice to resolve civil and criminal charges for off-label promotion. The illegal promotion stretched from 1995 to 2001, one year after Pfizer acquired Warner-Lambert, which first marketed the treatment, which became a blockbuster seller. In the years before the settlement, off-label sales of Neurontin were lucrative, rising from 15 percent of total sales of the drug in 1994 to 94 percent in 2002, according to court documents. From 1994 to 2002, for instance, Neurontin sales to the US Department of Veterans Affairs jumped from $287 000 to $43.2 million. By then, annual sales had reached $2.3 billion. In arguing before the Supreme Court, Pfizer insisted a federal appeals court improperly lower...
Source: Pharmalot - Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs