Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowSouth Carolina’s attorney general said Friday the state has reached a $45 million settlement with drug maker Eli Lilly
and Co. over the company’s marketing of the anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa, an agreement the drug maker said was its largest
with a single state over the drug.
"This is a victory for South Carolina’s taxpayers who were forced to bear
the financial costs of Eli Lilly’s unlawful conduct," Attorny General Henry McMaster said. "Our case was sound.
The evidence we presented was overwhelming. And I am pleased to say justice has been served."
In 2007, McMaster
filed a lawsuit against Lilly, arguing that it had improperly marketed Zyprexa for off-label uses. The Food and Drug Administration
has approved it to treat schizophrenia and certain types of bipolar disorder.
McMaster claimed the company also
pushed doctors to prescribe the drug for other ailments including dementia and attention-deficit disorder without warning
of possible side effects like heart problems, weight gain and diabetes.
In his lawsuit, McMaster argued that Lilly
should reimburse South Carolina’s Medicaid and state health plan for the tens of millions of dollars it had spent to treat
those side effects for nearly 64,000 patients from 1996 to 2007, as well as money the state spent to buy the prescriptions.
McMaster says the settlement is second in South Carolina history only to the 1998 agreement by tobacco companies to
pay 46 states, including South Carolina, more than $200 billion over several decades.
Attorneys general in 44
other states have sued Lilly over Zyprexa, but the $45 million agreement is the largest a single state has reached with the
drug maker, company spokeswoman Marni Lemons said.
"We’re glad to put the issue behind us and think it’s in
the best interests of not only Lilly but of patients, care givers, health care professionals and those who continue to rely
on Zyprexa, which is a life-saving medication," she said.
The next-highest single-state Zyprexa settlement
was with Connecticut, for $30 million, Lemons said. In its third-quarter earnings statement released Wednesday, the company
said it was in "advanced discussions" with the six remaining states with which it has open Zyprexa cases.
In January, Lilly pleaded guilty to illegally marketing Zyprexa, agreeing to pay a combined $1.42 billion to settle civil
suits with several states and end a criminal investigation. Lilly also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor Food, Drug and Cosmetic
Act violation for promoting the drug as a dementia treatment.
Zyprexa, approved in 1996, is Lilly’s top seller,
bringing in $1.2 billion in the third quarter, 3 percent more than it did the same quarter last year.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.