Community | September 02, 2009 | 8 comments

Pfizer pleads guilty, to pay record $2.3 billion to settle

source: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5813XB20090902

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sespian
Pfizer Inc agreed on Wednesday to plead guilty to a U.S. criminal charge relating to promotion of its now-withdrawn Bextra pain medicine and will pay a record $2.3 billion to settle allegations it improperly marketed 13 medicines.

The world's biggest drugmaker was slapped with the huge fines after being deemed a repeat offender in pitching drugs to patients and doctors for unapproved conditions.

Pfizer, whose shares fell 1.3 percent, had pleaded guilty in 2004 to an earlier criminal charge of improper sales tactics and its marketing practices have been under federal supervision since then.

The company in January said it took a $2.3 billion charge late last year to resolve allegations involving Bextra and other drugs, but did not provide details at the time.

Wednesday's agreement was unveiled by the U.S. Department of Justice and Health and Human Services Department.
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Pfizer's marketing team promoted Bextra for acute pain, surgical pain and other unapproved uses, while its salesforce promoted the drug directly to doctors for those unapproved uses and dosages, according to the Justice Department.

The company and Pharmacia also used advisory boards, consultant meetings and provided travel to lavish resorts to improperly promote Bextra to doctors and made false and misleading claims about the drug's safety and efficacy, the government said.

The settlement also includes $1 billion in civil payments related to so-called "off-label" sales of drugs -- meaning for uses not authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration -- and payments to healthcare professionals.
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"Pfizer ripped off taxpayers across the country to pad its bottom line," New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said.
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8 comments // Pfizer pleads guilty, to pay record $2.3 billion to settle

  • desertcat
    • 0
      desertcat  

    • big freaking deal. now they will just raise the prices on all their products and make a profit. what the government should of done was made them reduce the price of all their products for ten years. that would of hurt them more. its getting be which corporation can be the biggest crook of late and these slap of 2.3 billion on the wrist is not going to stop it. when I was a kid and did something wrong I got a stern punishment not a slap on the wrist but it taught me not to do that one again. same should apply to the corporate crooks.

    • 2 years ago
  • lilysol
    • 0
      lilysol  

    • This slap on the wrist is spitting in the victim's faces. Even scarier are the "approved" drugs they continue to push. Eat right, exercise, meditate (or relax, smoke weed,whatever your thing is), and research alternatives because drug companies will continue to be primarily about "padding their bottom line", and the FDA seems to be about pandering to their lobbyists.

    • 2 years ago
  • animaladvocate
  • kennymotown
    • 0
      kennymotown  

    • Nobody doing time, corporatism at it's finest. Continue to investigate them all including the monopoly that the insurance company's have built.

    • 2 years ago
  • cafiredancer
  • maha_aba
    • 0
      maha_aba  

    • pharmaceutical companies will continue with these types of atrocities until someone VERY wealthy and VERY important dies as a result of one of their products.

      your health is their wealth.

    • 2 years ago
  • masterzip
    • 0
      masterzip  

    • Funny how corporations always insist they are legally a "person" until it comes to prosecution for criminal activity. If a "person" is convicted of a crime and no jail time is served, how does that serve justice or the public.

    • 2 years ago
  • sespian
    • 0
      sespian  

    • What happened to shutting down corrupt companies like this? They are repeat offenders. They did this while under the government's "watch" due to a prior criminal charge. The manufacturing portion of the company should be auctioned off, with the proceeds going to the victims of their crimes, which is the American taxpayers in this case.

      Until "we the people" stand up for justice we can expect corrupt corporations to continue to pay fines from the illegal and immoral profits they make, take their slap on the hand, apologize, and promise to never do it again, all the while planning their next money making scheme.

    • 2 years ago
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