The Cochran Firm Legal Blog

On September 2, 2009, this space posted a blog about the $2.3 million settlement over Pfizer's off-label marketing of Bextra, a drug for arthritis and menstrual pain.

Five More Pfizer Fine Facts

1. There are five more whistleblowers involved besides John Kopchinski, the then chairman and CEO of Pfizer who turned whistleblower Together they will be receiving over $102 million of the total settlement amount.
2. One of the Pfizer employees who was fined was Mary Holloway, the leader of about 100 sales reps who sold Bextra off-label. She has paid a fine of $75,000 and is on two years' probation. That fine is specifically for promoting Bextra for joint replacement recovery, selling it as a drug to get the patient walking sooner and thus avoiding deep-vein thrombosis. She stated that she had support from her superiors and that the off-label campaign was "part of the Pfizer culture." However, Bextra was not FDA-approved for post-surgery use.
3. A Pfizer sales manager, one Thomas Farina, had a team of sales reps in Brooklyn. They were called The Highlanders, after a TV show and movie about "a cult of immortals living secretly among us who must kill or be killed." He was convicted of obstruction of justice and is about six weeks into a six-month home confinement with an electronic ankle bracelet.
4. Farina was caught altering a computer's time clock to back-date documents that he had just changed. He had just shown his team a video informing them they were being investigated. He then deleted some documents, deleted off-label references in others, and when he saved these documents, the computer's clock showed their older date instead of that day's date. This hid the fact that he had changed them.
5. It is not Pfizer's name that will be tarnished by this entire investigation and fine. It will be Pharmacia & Upjohn Company, a Pfizer acquisition.

Off-label use of a drug is not illegal, but drug company marketing of a drug for off-label use is. Please see Business Fraud for more about this type of violation.

If you have been injured by inappropriate use of a drug and are wondering whether you might have a valid legal claim, please contact our personal injury attorneys today to schedule a free case evaluation.

Labels: main