Johnson & Johnson Settlement Nothing New for Company; Small Fine Unlikely to Prompt Change in Behavior says Public Citizen

Johnson & Johnson Settlement Nothing New for Company; Small Fine Unlikely to Prompt Change in BehaviorStatement of Sammy Almashat, Researcher, Public Citizen’s Health Research GroupNov. 4, 2013Contact: Angela Bradbery [phone]; Sam Jewler [phone]Today’s announcement that Johnson & Johnson has agreed to plead guilty to several criminal charges and pay $2.2 billion in criminal and civil fines to the federal and state governments is the latest in a long line of multibillion-dollar health fraud settlements reached between the drug industry and the federal and state governments. The settlement ranks as the third-largest health fraud settlement ever reached between a pharmaceutical company and the federal government and comes just one year after GlaxoSmithKline’s record-breaking $3 billion agreement in July 2012.Today’s settlement focused mostly ($1.7 billion of the $2.2 billion settlement) on Johnson & Johnson’s illegal off-label promotion of its blockbuster antipsychotic drug, Risperdal. The company paid a criminal fine of $400 million and pleaded guilty to marketing the drug to treat behavioral disturbances and psychotic symptoms in elderly patients without schizophrenia (at the time, the drug was approved only to treat schizophrenic symptoms). The company will also pay almost $1.3 billion in civil penalties to resolve allegations that it marketed the drug for use in the elderly, children and mentally disabled patients when it was not appr...

Source: PharmaGossip - November 5, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: insider Source Type: blogs