Published 9 September 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b3657
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b3657

News

Pfizer pays record fine for off-label promotion of four drugs

Janice Hopkins Tanne

1 New York

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

Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company, has agreed to pay $2.3bn (£1.4bn; {euro}1.6bn) to settle charges of fraud and civil and criminal liability over its promotion of off-label use of four drugs.

The US Department of Justice said it was the largest healthcare fraud settlement in the department’s history and the largest criminal fine ever.

The New York Times noted that $2.3bn amounted to less than three weeks of Pfizer sales (www.nytimes.com, 3 Sep, "Pfizer to pay $2.3 billion to settle inquiry over marketing").

Unlike in previous settlements by drug companies, the announcement of the settlement was made at a Washington press conference by Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, the parent body of the Food and Drug Administration. Although the investigation was conducted under the Bush administration, the department’s publicity suggests that the Obama administration will be tougher on drug companies that . . . [Full text of this article]


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