Some of the early results are already in — Pfizer v. Wyeth, Merck v. Schering,
Roche v. Genentech. But there are lots of key matchups left to go before merger
mania reaches its absurd conclusion and the whole industry consolidates under
one giant roof. …
Obama, one; pharma lobbyists, zero. When the new president signs the $787
billion stimulus bill, he’ll be launching something drugmakers sought to quash:
funding for comparative effectiveness research. …
The skirmish over document disclosure in Orlando is part of a hornet’s nest of
litigation against AstraZeneca, a British company with U.S. headquarters in
Wilmington, Del. More than 15,000 patients have filed over 9,000 personal injury
lawsuits. About 40 percent of these claims have been consolidated for pretrial
motions in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. …
Apparently, Medicare’s reasoning is not understood in England. A week
ago,
researchers at Oxford discovered the long-sort genetic link
vitamin D has
with multiple …
Eli Lilly insists that it has not marketed Zyprexa off-label and that it has
accurately represented the drug’s side effects. But some medical researchers who
have studied the atypical antipsychotics say that, in the final tally, the
drugs, which have already been linked to some deaths, may eventually be
responsible for tens of thousands of cases of diabetes and other potentially
fatal diseases. And despite their early promise for treating schizophrenia, the
drugs have not even performed any better than the crude and imprecise earlier
medications that preceded them. …
his electroshock doctor, Bernard M.
Coelho, MD, at Mercy Hospital is often
full with about 10 patients
who Ray believes are also scheduled for
electroshock. Giving multiple
electroshocks on the same morning is a common
practice, sometimes
called a “Shock Mill,” and can be very lucrative. …
Vioxx plaintiff lawyers are asking a judge to nullify a cap on their contingency
fees …
The issue at stake is whether insurance companies can claim even though they
were not the targets of Lilly’s fraud: …
As part of the settlement
with the Justice Department, Lilly agreed to plead guilty to one
misdemeanor violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act related to the
off-label promotion of Zyprexa between 1999 and 2001. The guilty plea
says Lilly promoted the drug in elderly people as treatment for
dementia, including Alzheimer’s, although the drug isn’t approved for
such use.
…
Lilly had been accused of persuading doctors to prescribe Zyprexa to
children and the elderly, despite the fact that the drug wasn’t
FDA-approved for those patient groups–and the knowledge that it was
particularly risky for them to take. As you know, Zyprexa has been
shown to cause excessive weight gain and to boost the risk of death in
elderly patients with dementia. …