AstraZeneca’s Psychiatric Drug Seroquel: Yet Another Qui Tam Grand Slam

[WSJ_law_blog]

No one likes a nark. But these days, the pharmaceutical industry, it seems, has more reason to fear them than most.

Earlier this year, Eli Lilly & Company paid $1.4 billion over its marketing of antipsychotic drug Zyprexa. And in September, Pfizer announced it would pay $2.3 billion to settle charges mostly related to its painkiller Bextra.

Now, it’s AstraZeneca’s turn. The company on Thursday announced that it had reached a $520 million agreement to settle two federal investigations and two whistle-blower lawsuits (also called qui tam suits) over the sale and marketing of its blockbuster psychiatric drug Seroquel. Click here for the WSJ story; here for the NYT story.

According to the NYT story, one of the investigations related to “selected physicians who participated in clinical trials involving Seroquel,” AstraZeneca disclosed in a government filing. The other case related to off-label promotion of the drug.

As a result of aggressive marketing, Seroquel has been increasingly used for children and elderly people for indications not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Tony Jewell, a company spokesman, declined unveil too many details to the Times about the physicians or clinical trials under investigation. He said the company was in final negotiations to settle the whistle-blower suits and reach a corporate integrity agreement with the Justice Department.

The name of the whistle-blowers and other details of the suits remained sealed in federal court. Stephen A. Sheller, a lawyer in Philadelphia for the whistle-blowers, and Patricia Hartman, a spokeswoman for the United States attorney in Philadelphia, both declined to comment.

There is way too much cooperation these days between the big-firm drug marketers and the doctors as far as I am concerned.

Utah Doc.