{"id":18113,"date":"2012-01-09T00:00:45","date_gmt":"2012-01-09T05:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=18113"},"modified":"2012-01-09T00:24:11","modified_gmt":"2012-01-09T05:24:11","slug":"the-games-begin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2012\/01\/09\/the-games-begin\/","title":{"rendered":"the games begin…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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State attorney general sued drug company<\/font><\/strong><\/u><\/a>
Abbott: state paid excessively to Johnson & Johnson for Risperdal<\/sup><\/font><\/strong>
Austin Statesman<\/font><\/strong>
By Tim Eaton
Jan.8, 2012<\/div>\n

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is pitted against one of the largest multinational pharmaceutical companies in a trial starting this week that could bring the state more than $1 billion one of its largest potential awards since a multibillion-dollar tobacco settlement in 1998. Abbott is charging that Johnson & Johnson Inc., its wholly owned subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceutical LLC and five other related companies defrauded the state in a "sophisticated marketing scheme" that caused the Texas Medicaid Program to pay too much for Janssen’s schizophrenia drug Risperdal, the lawsuit says. The state also questions the companies’ marketing practices and alleges that the companies misled state health officials about the drug’s effectiveness, the risk of side effects and its suitability for pediatric use. The trial is scheduled to begin 9 a.m. today in Judge John Dietz’s 250th state District Court in Travis County…<\/sup><\/p>\n

Texas got involved with Risperdal litigation about six years ago, when Abbott’s office joined a lawsuit filed by corporate whistle-blower Allen Jones, who is a former employee of the office of the inspector general of Pennsylvania. Jones has questioned the process for how Risperdal was approved in Texas and how that information was used by other states in their approval processes. Jones filed suit in 2004 after his investigation in Pennsylvania led him to examine the companies’ track record in Texas. As a whistle-blower plaintiff, he alleged that the companies overcharged the states and overstated the drug’s effectiveness…<\/sup><\/p>\n

The lawsuit says that Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries employed suspect tactics in order to sell Risperdal in the public sector, which promised to be especially lucrative. Eighty-five percent of Risperdal’s revenue was projected to come from the public sector, because schizophrenic adults tend to be poor and uninsured. "Understanding the need to obtain significant government buy-in to achieve their financial goals for Risperdal, defendants set their sights on a state with one of the largest Medicaid populations in the country — Texas," according to the filing by the state and Jones. But getting a state like Texas to put a drug on a list of preferred medications — which the companies ultimately accomplished — can be a tremendous undertaking.<\/sup><\/p>\n

The lawsuit discusses the challenge for the companies to persuade decision-makers in Texas’ public medical agencies to make the move — despite what it said was evidence that the drug is more expensive and no more effective than older medications, the state and Jones say in their lawsuit. Johnson & Johnson and the related companies even created a special business unit called the Public Health Systems and Reimbursement Department designed to push the drug in the public sector, the lawsuit says. The companies also had to navigate the Texas Medicaid Program’s cost-savings measures, and to do so the companies employed a campaign that included misrepresentations about the drug’s effectiveness and superiority over other drugs, the state alleges.<\/sup><\/p>\n

The state’s case outlines allegations of kickbacks — "money going directly to key decision-makers," the lawsuit says — paid more than a decade ago to several doctors employed by the state’s Health and Human Services Commission to give Risperdal preference over other antipsychotic drugs. Jones’ lawsuit claims that Risperdal became part of the treatment plan because of the drug companies’ "improper influence" over Dr. Steven Shon, the former medical director for behavioral health at the Department of State Health Services. Shon had served as a paid Janssen consultant and traveled the country promoting the Texas plan… Jones’ legal team also charged that the company perfected its marketing skills in Texas before reaching out to the other states in which it pushed for expanded Risperdal prescriptions…<\/sup><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Nine hours and counting from now the TMAP\/J&J suit finally makes it to a courtroom and the jury selection begins. I’ve only known about this case for a year. But for Allen Jones, it has been a decade since he first got the scent of the wrongdoing alleged in this case. The whistle-blower suit itself was filed eight years ago. I have no clue what it would be like to have something like this on my mind every day for a decade, much less what it would feel like to finally be going to court and testifying in a matter of days. Certainly, the financial stakes are high – the lawyers speak of a billion dollars. But there will be other high stake issues at play in this courtroom. This case brings up so many of the deceptive practices that characterized the invasion of the pharmaceutical industry into academic psychiatry and psychiatric practice, all put into action behind closed doors. With this case, there are added twists. J&J targeted public mental health care. The taxpayers of the State of Texas were the victims along with the State’s mentally ill in hospitals, clinics, and prisons. TMAP was run by academic psychiatrists from Texas’ medical schools, and the psychiatrists who administered TMAP, traveling the country as TMAP evangelists to other States, were employed by the Texas Mental Health system. It’s hard to wrap my mind around the fact that the State’s own academic and institutional doctors were themselves agents of Johnson & Johnson in defrauding the State’s taxpayers and the State’s mentally ill. Getting this story into the public eye is as important as any punitive damages that might come in this suit. Let the games begin…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

State attorney general sued drug company Abbott: state paid excessively to Johnson & Johnson for Risperdal Austin Statesman By Tim Eaton Jan.8, 2012 Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is pitted against one of the largest multinational pharmaceutical companies in a trial starting this week that could bring the state more than $1 billion one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18113"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18117,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18113\/revisions\/18117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}