In the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history, the U.S. Department of Justice announced today that "global health care giant" GlaxoSmithKline LLC ("GSK") agreed to plead guilty and to pay $3 billion to resolve "its criminal and civil liability arising from the company’s unlawful promotion of certain prescription drugs, its failure to report certain safety data, and its civil liability for alleged false price reporting practices."
Deputy Attorney General James Cole described the plea and settlement with GSK as follows: "GSK will plead guilty to criminal charges and pay $1 billion in criminal fines and forfeitures for illegally marketing and promoting the drugs Paxil and Wellbutrin for uses not approved by the FDA – including the treatment of children for depression, and the treatment of other patients for ailments ranging from obesity, to anxiety, to addiction and ADHD – and for failing to report important clinical data about the drug Avandia to the Food and Drug Administration. GSK will pay an additional $2 billion to resolve civil allegations that it caused false claims to be submitted to federal health care programs for these and other drugs as a result of the company’s illegal promotional practices and payments to physicians. This settlement also resolves a civil investigation of the company’s alleged underpayment of rebates that were required under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program."
As with previous criminal and False Claim Act settlements with Big Pharma discussed in the blog, GSK's conduct as detailed in the plea and the allegations of the False Claim Act complaint is disturbing and reprehensible. For example, the factual allegations of the Information detail GSK's marketing of the prescription drug Paxil for use in treating depression in children and adolescents even though the drug had not been found to have any efficacy for such a population.
Paxil had been approved by the FDA for the treatment of depression in adults, and it was one of the top 10 selling drugs in the U.S., with sales surpassing $1.8 billion a year in 2001-2002. Paxil, however, was never approved by the FDA "for any purpose" in the treatment of children and adolescents. In fact, GSK conducted three placebo-controlled studies in the safety and efficacy of using Paxil to treat depression in children and adolescents, and those studies failed to demonstrate any "efficacy" for the treatment of this population between the "patients in the study who received the drug being studied and patients in the study who received a placebo." After these studies, a GSK contractor hired to write an article about one of the studies misrepresented the study's findings as being favorable for the treatment of children and adolescents with Paxil, going so far as to say that "the findings of this study provide evidence of the efficacy and safety of [Paxil] in the treatment of adolescent depression."
With the article in hand, GSK then forwarded it to its 1900 sales representatives who sold Paxil with a cover letter stating, "Paxil demonstrates REMARKABLE efficacy and safety in the treatment of adolescent depression." This was just the beginning of GSK's marketing of Paxil. In addition, the Information reflects that GSK created a "150 person neuroscience specialty sales force to promote Paxil to psychiatrists." The Company also promoted Paxil's use in adolescents at Paxil "Forum Events," dinner programs, lunch programs, and spa programs. GSK had their sales personnel target those physicians --including physicians who only treated patients under age 18-- who prescribed the most antidepressants and provide free samples of Paxil in the hope that they would shift their patients to using Paxil.
GSK, however, did not inform its sales personnel that the FDA had not approved Paxil for the treatment of children or adolescents, and it continued to conceal that its studies did not support its claims for Paxil's efficacy in this population. In fact, the FDA later recommended that Paxil "not be used to treat depression in patients under 18" and later recognized that antidepressants, such as Paxil, "increased the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in . . . patients under age 18."
Paxil was not the only drug that GSK unlawfully promoted: it unlawfully promoted Wellbutrin and Avandia as well. As a result of the criminal plea, GSK will pay fines and forfeiture totaling $1 billion. The "civil settlements" resolve claims relating to these three drugs and others and will require GSK to pay $2 billion.
One of the civil settlements reported that relators had filed 4 qui tams against GSK and that the U.S. had intervened in them in 2011. The settlements explicitly did not address the whether any relator was entitled to any share of the proceeds or whether in fact they had filed valid qui tams.
DOJ has posted the key documents in the criminal and civil matters, and they can be found here.
A. Brian Albritton
July 2, 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment