IBJNews

Louisiana gets $20M in Lilly drug settlement

Back to TopCommentsE-mailPrint

Louisiana will receive $20 million in a settlement with pharmaceutical maker Eli Lilly and Co. over its marketing of the anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa, the state attorney general said Wednesday.

Louisiana was one of 13 states that filed individual suits in state courts over allegations that Indianapolis-based Lilly pushed the drug for uses that had not been approved by federal regulators.

Lilly spokeswoman Marni Lemons said Louisiana is the 11th state to settle. Other states that have settled are Alaska, West Virginia, Connecticut, Utah, Idaho, South Carolina, New Mexico, Mississippi, Arkansas and Montana. Suits filed by Minnesota and Pennsylvania are pending, Lemons said.

Lilly paid a $1.4 billion settlement to the federal government in January 2009 after admitting it had promoted Zyprexa for treatment of dementia in the elderly.

Zyprexa has been approved to treat psychological problems such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorders in adults only

Louisiana's suit alleged that Lilly marketed the drug for use with children and in other "off-label" uses as treating depression, attention deficit disorder, sleeping problems, anger and stabilizing moods.

"This settlement sends a clear message to pharmaceutical companies that improper and illegal marketing of drugs will not be tolerated in Louisiana," Attorney General James "Buddy" Caldwell said in a statement.

Caldwell said about $17 million will go into the state's general fund, while about $3 million will go toward reimbursement of the state's Medicaid fund, which paid to treat health problems of people taking the drug for unapproved purposes.

Lilly will pay an undisclosed amount of attorney fees to private attorneys hired by the state to handle the case, Caldwell said. None of the state's recovery is being used to pay attorneys, he said.

ADVERTISEMENT

  • Zyprexa saga continues






    Eli Lilly has made 40 billion on 10 dollar a pill Zyprexa and it was way oversold and caused diabetes and in some cases sudden death. Zyprexa was pushed by Lilly Drug Reps.

    They called it the "Five at Five" (5 mg at 5 pm to keep nursing home patients subdued and sleepy) and "VIVA ZYPREXA" (Zyprexa for everybody) campaigns to off label market Eli Lilly Zyprexa as a fix for unapproved usage.I am a living example of Zyprexa gone/done wrong was given it 1996-2000 off-label for PTSD got sudden high blood sugar A1C 14.7 in January 2000.The stuff was worthless for my condition PTSD and cost me thousands in co-pays gave me diabetes.

    --

    Daniel Haszard

Post a comment to this story

COMMENTS POLICY
We reserve the right to remove any post that we feel is obscene, profane, vulgar, racist, sexually explicit, abusive, or hateful.
 
You are legally responsible for what you post and your anonymity is not guaranteed.
 
Posts that insult, defame, threaten, harass or abuse other readers or people mentioned in IBJ editorial content are also subject to removal. Please respect the privacy of individuals and refrain from posting personal information.
 
No solicitations, spamming or advertisements are allowed. Readers may post links to other informational websites that are relevant to the topic at hand, but please do not link to objectionable material.
 
We may remove messages that are unrelated to the topic, encourage illegal activity, use all capital letters or are unreadable.
 

Messages that are flagged by readers as objectionable will be reviewed and may or may not be removed. Please do not flag a post simply because you disagree with it.

Sponsored by
ADVERTISEMENT

facebook - twitter on Facebook & Twitter

Follow on TwitterFollow IBJ on Facebook:
Follow on TwitterFollow IBJ's Tweets on these topics:
 
Subscribe to IBJ
  1. These higher rates Co. e about only because physicians are now hospital employees. otherwise physicians couldn't charge these rates and share the windfall with the hospital. Community/rural hospitals probably not buying physicians practices and thus weren't getting the windfall anyway.

  2. The incentive for poor people to get themselves off public assistance and "no longer be poor" is even with help...they're STILL POOR! Being poor, even with some assistance, isn't all that pleasant. (I speak from experience) It's a stubborn myth that poor people, who are on public assistance, are sitting in the lap of luxury. You should try living on just those "freebies" that you mentioned and see how meager they actually are. By the way, I didn't mean you had to buy/own a puppy...just pet one. :)

  3. As near as I can tell the minority has ZERO constitutional obligation to offer a quorum to the majority. A requirement for quorum was inserted into the constitution so that tyrannical majorities could not simply shove through odious and objectionable legislation (which is exactly what they did.) By allowing a tyrannical majority to charge fines against the minority for exercising their constitutional prerogative to deny quorum the court as made a mockery of constitutional governance in the state of Indiana.

  4. The voters elected the Reps to make a vote not walk out on the vote. They had to the right to exercise their opinion and vote "no" to the bill. Let me ask you this if you walked out of your job for 5 straight weeks would you get paid? Would you even have a job to go back to? If any elected official walks out on the people they should be arrested for stealing tax dollars from the public. They were elected to do a job and not leave when the job gets stuff.

  5. I have been to several of their locations in Pennsylvania and always go in for 1 item and leave with a basket full of things. I'm very happy they decided on Indiana, now if only they would put the other store in eastside.

ADVERTISEMENT