Admitting no wrong doing, AstraZeneca is expected to settle charges about off-label marketing Seroquel, according to reporting in the New York Times. The British pharmaceutical still faces 25,000 law suits brought by people who charging the company failed to adequately warn of side effects.
In the last three years, similar settlements have taken place with Pfizer (Geodon), Eli Lilly (Zyprexa), and Bristol-Meyers Squibb (Abilify). Physicians are allowed to prescribe medication that has not received FDA approval for a condition, but drug companies are not permitted to market them. Aggressive off-labeling marketing accounts for growth of use among the elderly in nursing homes, and for children, each contributing to the double-digitl growth in profits for sales of anti-psychotic medicines. Many of these are due to lose patent protection in the next few years. Aggressive marketing includes as well as engaging physicians paid by pharma for repping the drug, a practice now requiring disclosure.
