via CCSVI in Multiple Sclerosis - This new whistleblower case cost GlaxoSmithKline 3 billion dollars---and shines a bright light on Phama's tactics.

GSK maintained an elaborate illegal marketing regime for the prescription drugs included in today's settlement, including, according to filed documents:

Paying physicians (who could be counted on to influence their peers) as much as $25,000 for being a GSK "advisory board" member;

Enrolling 49,000 physicians and health professionals to be part of its speakers bureau;

Identifying physicians in academia to pay to speak on behalf of one of the company's drugs;

Creating the PowerPoint "slide kits" that physicians would use to deliver canned presentations;

Using an elaborate "FaxBack" system allowing drug marketing reps to suggest articles related to off-label uses. The physicians would order these -off-label promotional materials by calling a toll-free number, and thus not appear to be responding to an illegal marketing effort by the drug marketing representative;

Pushing Imitrex, an adult medicine for migraine, for mild headaches, as well as for use in children, despite the FDA's rejection of GSK's application for child use due to lack of efficacy;

Pushing Lamictal, a drug approved only for partial seizures, in adults for other diagnoses. In at least one case a patient died from a reaction that the company had evidence could occur;

Marketing Paxil, the antidepressant, to children under 18 when it had not been approved for youngsters, and despite GSK's own clinical trails that had shown that the drug was ineffective for children and also heightened the risk of suicide or other self-harming behavior three-fold; and,

Marketing the antidepressant Wellbutrin as superior to other antidepressant alternatives due to increased sexual functioning and weight loss, pushing the drug as the "happy, horny, skinny drug," to concisely encapsulate GSK's off-label Wellbutrin marketing campaign.


http://www.marketwatch.com/story/glaxosmithklines-gsk-3-billion-whistleblower-settlement-has-paid-for-one-of-americas-most-expensive-failed-corporate-internal-investigations-qui-tam-whistleblowers-attorneys-say-2012-07-02


GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) $3 Billion Whistleblower Settlement Has Paid for One Of America's Most Expen
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