BMJ  2004;328:1217 (22 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7450.1217

News

Pfizer pleads guilty, but drug sales continue to soar

New York

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Pfizer, the world's largest drug maker, pleaded guilty on 13 May to numerous civil and criminal charges for illegally promoting the off-label use of gabapentin (Neurontin). It has agreed to pay a $240m (£136m; 200m) criminal fine and $152m to state and federal healthcare programmes. The fine is the second largest given in the industry.

Meanwhile, off-label sales of gabapentin continue to soar, despite evidence that the drug is not effective for some of the problems it is used to treat.

David Franklin, 42, a microbiologist and former Harvard research fellow who worked as a "medical liaison" expert for Warner-Lambert before it was bought by Pfizer in 2002, filed a whistleblower suit under the False Claims Act in 1996, charging the company with using "fraudulent scientific evidence" to promote off-label uses of gabapentin.

Dr Franklin's suit detailed how the company suppressed study results, planted people in medical audiences to ask . . . [Full text of this article]

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