CALPIRG Blog

Drug giant Eli Lilly is in the final stages of negotiating a settlement in a case alleging that it marketed Zyprexa, an antipsychotic drug, for purposes that the FDA never approved.

Zyprexa was approved for treating adults with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. But Lilly worked to persuade doctors to prescribe it for the elderly -- who are at increased risk of heart failure and even death due to the drug's side effects -- and children -- who have been shown to gain significant weight while taking the drug.

What's worse, new research suggests that drugs like Zyprexa are no more effective and no safer than the older, better-studied, cheaper drugs they replaced.

The price tag on the proposed settlement -- $1.4 billion -- is staggering. But Zyprexa brings in almost $5 billion annually for Lilly. While it's impossible to know how many seniors and children were harmed by Lilly's inappropriate marketing efforts, it's a safe bet that the billions they brought in outweigh the $1.4 billion they might now have to pay out.

It's important that private and government lawyers bring these sorts of suits, to hold drug companies accountable for the impact their illegal schemes have on ordinary patients. But given the scale of money to be made, even record penalties might not be enough to outweigh the potential profit to be had by breaking the rules.

Maybe it's time to start thinking of some more creative approaches to prevent this kind of marketing in the first place -- like allowing regulators to take a look at marketing materials before they go out to the public, to make sure the drug companies aren't saying anything that might hurt patients.