also read about TAP's big fine for illegally marketed a prostate cancer
drug.

ps. this is just more proof that there is money is the marketing of
goods and services to the cancer patients more than there is in looking
out for their welfare.

~ curtis
------------------------

No. 1 drugmaker pleads guilty for pushing epilepsy drug for other,
unapproved uses.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc. agreed to pay $430 million and plead
guilty to criminal charges for illegally marketing an epilepsy drug for
unapproved uses such as migraines and pain, U.S. prosecutors said
Thursday.

The company's Warner-Lambert division promoted the drug, Neurontin, for
uses it had no scientific evidence to support, and even in cases where
the drug was shown to be ineffective, prosecutors said.
For example, the company promoted Neurontin for treating bipolar
disease, even though a study showed a placebo worked as well or better
than the drug for manic depression.

"Warner-Lambert's promotional efforts were a highly organized and
deliberate attempt to circumvent federal restrictions on marketing,''
Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum told a news conference in
Washington.

The $240 million criminal portion of Pfizer's payment is the second
largest criminal fine for a health-care fraud case, McCallum said.

TAP Pharmaceuticals, a venture of Abbott Laboratories Inc. and Takeda
Chemical Industries Ltd., agreed in 2001 to pay $290 million over
charges it illegally marketed a prostate cancer drug.

The Justice Department and attorneys general of all 50 states agreed to
the Neurontin settlement with Pfizer.
The settlement won't have a big financial impact on Pfizer, the world's
largest drugmaker with more than $45 billion in sales last year. The
company has already set aside funds needed for the settlement.
Still, Pfizer (PFE: down $0.40 to $35.31, Research, Estimates) stock
fell more than 1 percent in late New York Stock Exchange trading.

The case originated from a lawsuit filed in late 1996 by whistle-blower
David Franklin, who had worked for Warner-Lambert before it was acquired
by Pfizer in 2000.

Franklin said the company used a variety of schemes to illegally pump up
sales of Neurontin -- a drug that remains one of Pfizer's biggest
sellers with 2003 sales of $2.7 billion.

According to court documents, a May
1996 voicemail message from a top marketer to "medical liaisons'' in the
Northeast was like a call to arms: "When we get out there, we want to
kick some a.s, we want to sell Neurontin on pain.''
Under federal regulations, companies may market and promote drugs only
for uses approved by the Food and Drug Administration, although doctors
can prescribe drugs to treat other uses. Companies have been
increasingly scrutinized by regulators for "off-label'' marketing.

"This is a big chunk of money, and sends a warning shot to the drug
industry that companies and their sales representatives had better be
careful not to promote unauthorized uses of their medicines to
doctors,'' said David Moskowitz, an analyst for Friedman, Billings,
Ramsey & Co.

Pfizer said in a statement "the allegations and conduct pertain solely
to Warner-Lambert practices'' before it was acquired by Pfizer.

Franklin accused Warner-Lambert of hiring an outside firm to write at
least 20 articles for medical journals that extolled unauthorized uses
of Neurontin and then paid doctors for use of their names as authors of
the reports, according to court documents.

Moreover, Franklin told investigators that Warner-Lambert trained its
sales representatives how to hype unauthorized uses of Neurontin,
including one meeting in which a senior company official suggested what
to tell doctors.

"We need to be holding their hand and whispering in their ear,
'Neurontin for pain, Neurontin for monotherapy, Neurontin for bipolar,
Neurontin for everything'," according to a 2002 New York Times story
detailing Franklin's allegations.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston, which spearheaded prosecution of
the case, will receive $240 million of the settlement for criminal
violations of the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act.

Franklin will receive about $24.6 million.
Another $152 million will be distributed to the states and federal
government for Medicaid violations. Other sums will be distributed to
state health agencies and departments, while $28 million will be used
for a national advertising campaign and remediation program to be
overseen by state attorneys general

knowledge is power - growing old is mandatory - growing wise is optional    
"Many more men die with prostate cancer than of it. Growing old is
invariably fatal. Prostate cancer is only sometimes so."