\nJ&J Said to Face Demand to Lift Risperdal Settlement Offer by $800 Million<\/font><\/strong><\/u>
Bloomberg<\/font><\/strong>
By Margaret Cronin Fisk, Jef Feeley and David Voreacos
March 12, 2012<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
Johnson & Johnson faces a U.S. government demand to raise its offer by $800 million from an initial proposal to settle a federal civil investigation into marketing of the antipsychotic Risperdal, according to three people familiar with the matter. The Justice Department is demanding that J&J pay about $1.8 billion to resolve the civil claims by the U.S. and some states, the people said. The company raised its offer to settle the civil investigation to $1.3 billion by March 8, and negotiations on a final amount are continuing, one person said. The U.S. government has been investigating Risperdal sales practices since 2004, including allegations the company marketed the drug for unapproved uses, Johnson &Johnson has said in Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The company said it has been in negotiations with the U.S. to settle the investigation. The demand came after the Justice Department and states decided that a $1 billion settlement that had been negotiated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia in late December wasn’t adequate, according to the people, who weren’t authorized to speak on the matter. <\/p>\nA $158 million settlement between J&J and the Texas attorney general during a trial over Risperdal marketing in that state increased the demands by other states and the Justice Department, one of the people said. Several states wanted more money because of the Texas agreement, the person said.<\/font><\/strong> The U.S. government has been investigating Risperdal sales practices since 2004, including allegations the company marketed the drug for unapproved uses, J&J has said in Securities and Exchange Commission filings<\/span>. The company said it has been in negotiations with the U.S. to settle the investigation…<\/p>\n
The number of states that will join the final agreement remains in flux, one person said. Each state can decide whether to join the federal government’s settlement or pursue its own case. “Considering how much money the State of Texas got, it makes sense for the DOJ to push back for a significantly higher number,” said Patrick Burns of the advocacy group Taxpayers Against Fraud.<\/font><\/strong> “Washington can do the math.” The Wall Street Journal reported March 9 the Justice Department had rejected the $1 billion settlement negotiated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia, citing unidentified sources…<\/p>\n
J&J and Janssen have been sued by 12 states, including Texas, South Carolina and Louisiana, over Risperdal marketing. The attorneys general of the other states “have indicated a potential interest in pursuing similar litigation against” Janssen, J&J said in its quarterly SEC filing in November. J&J settled the claims by Texas for $158 million during trial in January. A jury in Louisiana, weighing claims that the company downplayed the drug’s risks, awarded that state $257.7 million in 2010. A South Carolina judge last year ordered J&J to pay $327 million over Risperdal sold in the state. Risperdal is a member of a class of drugs, known as atypical antipsychotics, that includes Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly & Co. <\/span>Zyprexa and London-based AstraZeneca. <\/p>\n
Lilly, AstraZeneca and two other J&J competitors making these drugs have paid $2.7 billion to resolve government marketing claims, particularly that the companies pushed the drugs for unapproved uses. Lilly paid more than $1.7 billion to resolve state and federal investigations over Zyprexa and AstraZeneca has paid almost $590 million. Pfizer Inc. <\/span>paid $301 million for its drug Geodon. <\/sup><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
I think we’re so used to this that it doesn’t occur to us what a big deal it really is, or at least should be. Looking back, the SSRI manufacturers got the ball rolling in the 1990s by using the medical literature as an advertising platform at a level unknown to me in the medical past [and unknown to me when it occurred]. While TMAP is probably the most macabre version, by that time it was business as usual with ghost-written articles and paid KOLs flying from place to place teaching primary care physicians to practice symptomatic treatment of mental illness [badly] using algorithmic psychopharmacology. The algorithms were simple, in the face of psychiatric illness prescribe this or that favored drug [that we make]. By the 2000s, the practice was rampant, as it remains to this day.<\/div>\nThe cascade of suits against J&J were beyond well deserved. I pulled out the references from the Texas Trial transcripts<\/u><\/a> for this next part<\/em>: <\/p>\n