Missouri and Illinois to benefit from Zyprexa settlement
Missouri and Illinois are among 32 states, along with the District of Columbia, that have agreed to a $62 million settlement with drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co. over its top-selling drug Zyprexa, an antipsychotic medication.
Lilly agreed to resolve an investigation into the company’s marketing practices. Attorneys general from several states accused Lilly of marketing Zyprexa for off-label uses and inadequately disclosing the drug’s side effects to health care providers, the same claims made in other litigation against the drugmaker.
Lilly was accused of marketing the drug for pediatric care, for use at a high dose and for the treatment of dementia. Doctors are free to prescribe drugs for uses not approved by the FDA, but drug companies cannot market them for those situations.
The company did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement. The $62 million will be divided among the states and the district based on population (payday loan).
Lilly also agreed to several mandates that will last until 2014, well beyond the expiration of Zyprexa’s patent in 2011. The company agreed to avoid making false, misleading or deceptive claims about the drug and not to promote it outside FDA-approved uses.
The drugmaker also agreed to give its medical staff, not the marketing staff, ultimate responsibility for approving the content in all medical letters and medical references regarding Zyprexa.
Lilly spokesman Phil Belt said many of the items his company agreed to were things it either already did or was in the process of doing.