Drug Recall Lawyer Blog

Here are the week’s top stories:

• Off-Label Marketing: Jack’s Posterous has a recount of recent off-label marketing fines paid by drug dealers (oops, I mean manufacturers). “As long as off-label promotion is more profitable than the fines for punishing off-label promotion, we will have off-label promotion.”
• Motrin Phantom Recall: Pogust, Braslow & Millrood’s Drug Injury Lawyer Blog has details of Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare and their effort to avoid a Motrin recall.
• Zocor: FDA says it may cause muscle injury (rhabdomyolysis). See our prior Zocor posts.
• Pfizer and Free Samples: Pfizer spends the most doling out free samples--$2.7 billion in a year. Kinda makes you think about those paltry fines, huh?
• Off-Label Marketing, pt. II: Take the poll.
• Drugs and Porn: Can drugs cause porn and gambling addictions? Looks like there are lawsuits in Australia and here in the U.S. I’m highly skeptical of this one.
• Fosamax: Jury selection just ended in the retrial of the Boles case, yesterday.
• Januvia & Janumet: We've been getting a lot of questions about these diabetes drugs lately, so see our website.

Happy Tuesday!

I have a great dentist. My wife has been going to him since she was a teenager, and when I moved to Maryland I signed on, too. He’s personable, understands a little about out-of-the box marketing (he’s the only one of my health care providers who actually sends e-mails), and does a great job. However, my wife and I have an inside joke that his office is really a front for the mob.

How do I know? Before any appointment, I get crazy calls to confirm the appointment. By crazy, I mean they will start calling a week before, and if I don’t return the call within 30 minutes, they call again. And again. And again. I know—they lose money if I don’t show up, because that’s time they could reserve for another patient. But, their practice of repeated (I won’t say harassing, but it feels that way) calls makes me wonder if it isn’t a matter of time before they come out with wood baseball bats and thumb screws if I were to ever miss an appointment.

The Red Cross is the same way.

Continue reading "What Do The Mob and Drug Companies Have In Common?" »

Here are some stories to follow this week:

• Tylenol Recall: Johnson & Johnson’s statement about the recall is here, and they have a blog post here (with some interaction with consumers via comments).
• Vyvanase and Off-label Marketing: John Mack has an interesting post analyzing an ad that might be promoting off-label use through subtle imagery. Is it off-label, or is just a picture? You be the judge!
• Maalox: The FDA posted a statement (scroll to the bottom) under Patient Safety News regarding the problems with confusing various types of Maalox, which can have disastrous results.
• April 510k Clearances: viewable here.
• Topomax: After the $81 million settlement with the DOJ over its drug Topomax, Johnson & Johnson sales reps are going to be randomly observed during sales pitches (HT: FiercePharma).
• Preemption and Generic Drugs: post by the For the Defense.
• Fosamax: I’ve been trying to get a post on this important decision, but it’s been a busy couple of days. Tom Lamb has a description.

Happy Monday!

We’ve been getting a lot of questions over the past few days about Seroquel. That usually means I need to put up a new post, especially in light of recent events.

Earlier this week, AstraZeneca (the manufacturer of Seroquel) agreed to pay $520 million to settle a federal inquiry into Seroquel marketing practices. As we have stated before, Seroquel is approved to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. However, investigators and plaintiffs believe that AstraZeneca marketed the drug for myriad other unapproved uses, including depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, dementia, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

There are no criminal charges associated with the deal. Giving credence to plaintiffs’ claims (aside from the credibility arising from the mere fact of a whopping large settlement), is that federal investigators got much of their information from AstraZeneca whistleblowers, drug sales rep, James Wetta (who had some involvement in the whistleblowing at Eli Lilly around 2003).

The deal comes at a time when such deals seem to be simply the cost of doing business. As just one example, Boston Scientific is in the midst of trying to settle with investigators for $296 million over the actions of a company it acquired, Guidant. Seroquel’s settlement pales in light of the fact that in 2009 alone, they made $4.9 billion in Seroquel sales. Isn’t that criminal?

Anyway—civil lawsuits are still continuing, but Plaintiffs are having a hard time of it. For more information, visit our Seroquel website and past Drug Recall Lawyer Blog posts on Seroquel.

I saw a link the other day to CNBC's "Pharma's Market" by Mike Huckman titled The Funny Business of Selling Drugs. Unsure if it was truly funny or more simply "funny" in the sense of "something funny is going on, here," I clicked the link.

Turns out it's a little of both. It's a brief article about an HBO Comedy, "The Life and Times of Tim" (which, admittedly, I've never seen nor heard of).

According to the article, one episode has the following premise:

The show is a bawdy, hilarious send-up of doctors' offices that are overrun by so-called "Meals on Heels." That's industry slang for the stereotypical short-skirted, wheely-bag toting, lunch-catering drug sales reps.

As funny as it may (or may not) be, there is usually a little truth behind most jokes. The description of the episode seems to be an indictment of sorts against the way things are done in the Pharm industry--drug companies selling their wares by plying doctors with gifts--little things, like office supplies, stress balls, gadgets, and trips to Hawaii. Is there a better way to keep doctors informed about your products? Well, we're all human, and without a personal incentive, we may not have any interest in learning about these products (I routinely refuse to see vendors who "stop by" the office without an appointment, though some in my office love to spend 30 minutes chatting for some complimentary swag).

Bribery (and that's what it is) doesn't exactly send the right message. I'm sure the drug companies will defend the practice, saying that doctors use their independent judgment, and they are using the gifts as a means to get in the door so they can have a really serious sit-down, but what human wouldn't want to "earn" the free gifts, or at least repay the favor? Surely there is a better way...

Here are the stories we’re following this week:

• Fosamax and Statute of Limitations: Recent Fosamax case and application of American Pipe mass tort/class action tolling (HT: Drug and Device Law Blog)
• Drug Pushers: Are sales reps who promote their companies drugs with direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising “pushers?” (HT: Pharma Marketing Blog)
• Anemia Drugs: Anemia drugs by Johnson & Johnson and Amgen may exacerbate heart problems and survival in kidney patients (HT: FiercePharma)
• Price-fixing: According to a Bloomberg report, Germany cuts costs of drugs by precluding manufacturers from setting their own prices.
• Neurontin: Reuters reports that Pfizer loses a RICO trial to the tune of $141 million.
• Boston Scientific Defibrillators: Another perspective here. You can see our previous blog post here.
• CT Scan Radiation: New York Times article about whether FDA ignored warnings about radiation problems.

Happy Monday!

A short article by FiercePharma, a monitor for the pharmaceutical industry, got me thinking about sales reps. The article, “Pfizer, Merck reps are tops to cardiologists,” summarized a poll of cardiologists sales representatives from the top pharmaceutical companies. Here they are, in order of “best to worst”:

• Pfizer
• Merck
• Schering-Plough
• AstraZeneca
• Novartis

Among the issues graded were product knowledge, understanding of doctors’ schedules, conduct, and samples. I don’t know how many pharmaceutical companies were graded—for example, is Novartis really bad, or were these the top five out of, say, 100 companies? At any rate, the article prompted me to think a little more about drug and device sales reps.

Continue reading "Sales Reps Can Be Important To Your Drug/Device Lawsuit" »