March 22, 2008

The state of Alaska has just gone to trial in its suit against Lilly over alleged mispromotion of the psychiatric drug Zyprexa. Beck and Herrmann:

The State of Alaska is seeking civil penalties from Lilly under the Unfair Trade Practice Consumer Protection Act of at least $1000 for every time a physician in Alaska prescribed Zyprexa.

You read that correctly: The remedy is seemingly unrelated to why the physician prescribed the drug and whether or not the patient's condition improved. No causation; no injury; no nothing. It's at least a thousand bucks (and perhaps as much as $25,000) per script times hundreds of thousands of alleged violations....

And that's aside, they say, from whether the suit ignores the provision in Alaska's UTP statute that exempts from its coverage regulated transactions, which the labeling of a drug surely is.