DHS to get $1.3M from Eli Lilly settlement

The R.I. Department of Human Services is set to receive $1.3 million as part of a deal struck by Eli Lilly & Co. to settle allegations that for six years, it encouraged improper, off-label use of the anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa for depression, anxiety, disrupted sleep, nausea and more.
The pharmaceutical company will pay $800 million in damages and penalties to the federal government, 36 states and Washington, D.C., to compensate Medicaid and various federal health care programs, R.I. Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch said.
“The blind pursuit of profit has given another giant of the pharmaceutical industry another black eye, and it’s appropriate that Eli Lilly is paying the price for engaging in its illegal, deceptive, and unconscionable conduct,” Lynch said in a news release. “Six years is a long time to be sneaking around the rules that exist to protect patients from harm.”
From 1999 to 2005, Eli Lilly conducted a campaign with the slogan “Viva Zyprexa” that targeted not only psychiatrists but also primary care physicians, who were encouraged to use the drug beyond its U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved uses, and received money and gifts.
The doctors, in turn, prescribed Zyprexa for children and adolescents, dementia patients in long-term care facilities, and in unapproved doses, none of which would normally be paid for by state Medicaid programs.
Along with the civil settlement, Eli Lilly filed a plea agreement with the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in which it admittted to a misdemeanor violation of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and paid an additional $615 million criminal fine.
Eli Lilly also entered a corporate integrity agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through which HHS’s Inspector General will closely monitor the company’s future marketing and sales practices.