Ending drugmakers' off-label marketing schemes said to be difficult.
Copyright © 2009 by Custom Briefings

Bloomberg News (11/9, Evans) reports, "Across the US, pharmaceutical companies have been pleading guilty to criminal charges or paying penalties in civil cases when the US Department of Justice finds that they deceptively marketed drugs for unapproved uses." In fact, "since May 2004, Pfizer, Eli Lilly & Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and four other drug companies have paid a total of $7 billion in fines and penalties." But, prosecutor Michael Loucks notes that "putting an end to the criminal off-label schemes by the pharmaceutical industry is...difficult," because "as drugmakers repeatedly plead guilty, they've shown they're willing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in fines as a cost of generating billions in revenue."