Pfizer and the GABA Agonist, Neurontin - No, that really was a drug
Mort Zuckerman
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Subject: Pfizer and the GABA Agonist, Neurontin - No, that really was
a drug
Date: Mar 24, 2010 3:20 PM
ARTICLE BELOW
===================================
Um, no. At one time it was
known (and I believe this to be
true) that a mechanism of brain
damage caused by psychotropics
was that degradants of antipsychotics
bind to and mutate the GABA transporter
accounting for some of the agitation
(emotional, too) or Parkinsons-like
movement disorders associated with
these brain damaging excuses for
drugs.
Therefore, as a treatment for the
brain damage caused by other
psychotropics, Neurontin would
have been a drug:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=%22gaba%20agonists%22[MeSH%20Terms]%20OR%20%28%22gaba%22[All%20Fields]%20AND%20%22agonists%22[All%20Fields]%29%20OR%20%22gaba%20agonists%22[All%20Fields]%20OR%20%28%22gaba%22[All%20Fields]%20AND%20%22agonist%22[All%20Fields]%29%20OR%20%22gaba%20agonist%22[All%20Fields]%20OR%20%22gaba%20agonists%22[Pharmacological%20Action]&cmd=DetailsSearch&log$=details
http://www.actionlyme.org/BRAINDAMAGE.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9555021?ordinalpos=156&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
That's what everyone thought at
the time: "A GABA Agonist is a drug
for people whose GABA transporters
are damaged."
That's hilarious that Kaiser would
dare to sue Pfizer in a false
claims act case, when Kaiser at
New York Medical College in the
main deal for the establishment
of the ALDF.com at NYMC was
HALF the RICO enterprise that
ruined research in all major
diseases.
If stuff is true, ya gotta
say it. Trovan was also and
still is a drug:
http://www.actionlyme.org/TROVAN.htm
Kathleen M. Dickson
http://www.actionlyme.org
==================================
Pfizer Defends Epilepsy Drug Neurontin at Fraud Trial
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-23/pfizer-defends-epilepsy-drug-neurontin-at-fraud-trial-in-boston.html
Pfizer Defends Epilepsy Drug Neurontin at Fraud Trial (Update3)
March 23, 2010, 6:45 PM EDT
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(Adds lawyers’ arguments in 14th to 18th paragraphs.)
By Bob Van Voris and Janelle Lawrence
March 23 (Bloomberg) -- Pfizer Inc., facing a $270 million fraud
claim, defended its epilepsy drug Neurontin at the close of a civil
racketeering trial in Boston.
“It’s a good drug that, at one time, at least in some parts of the
country, may have been marketed by some bad people,” Pfizer attorney
Raoul Kennedy told jurors in a closing argument today.
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc. and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals
claimed in a monthlong trial in federal court that Pfizer illegally
promoted Neurontin for unapproved uses. Kaiser said it was misled into
believing Neurontin was effective for migraines, bipolar disorder and
other conditions in addition to epilepsy, for which the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration approved the drug in 1993.
Kaiser doctors continued to prescribe the drug in growing quantities
even after the health insurer sued Pfizer in 2005, Pfizer lawyers told
the jury. The insurer’s Web site also still lists Neurontin as a drug
for neuropathic pain, they said.
“What you’re hearing in this courtroom is not what Kaiser is telling
its patients,” Pfizer attorney James E. Hooper said during closing
arguments.
$90 Million Sought
A lawyer for Kaiser, the first insurer to try a Neurontin case against
Pfizer, told jurors the insurer was forced to pay $90 million more
than it should have for Neurontin, an amount that may be tripled under
federal civil-racketeering law.
Kaiser, based in Oakland, California, alleges Neurontin was wrongly
prescribed for off-label uses, including treatment of neuropathic
pain, and in dosages larger than the maximum approved by the FDA. The
company’s own studies showed that Neurontin was no more effective than
a placebo in treating the condition, though Pfizer never told doctors
or patients about the findings, Kaiser said.
Pfizer claims Kaiser continues to permit its doctors to prescribe
Neurontin for off-label conditions. Kaiser didn’t present testimony
from any doctors claiming they wouldn’t have prescribed the medication
if they had known better, Pfizer’s lawyer argued.
“This is a plaintiff who has 12,000 supposedly defrauded doctors and
hasn’t brought one in here,” Kennedy told the jury.
Kaiser Arguments
Kaiser attorney Thomas Sobol began his argument by slamming a chair to
the floor in front of the jury box.
“Guess who’s not sitting in that chair?” Sobol said to the jury. “No
one from Pfizer dared to come to this court and sit in this room and
talk to you.”
Sobol said Pfizer can’t explain internal memorandums that he claimed
show that from 1994 to 2004 Pfizer and Warner-Lambert took a drug that
was initially projected for $500 million in sales and marketed it
treat a number of conditions for which it didn’t work, eventually
generating sales of more than $10 billion.
“They have to hide from you on it,” Sobol said.
Kaiser attorney Linda Nussbaum said Pfizer saw the health insurer as a
target, or “mark,” beginning in the mid-1990s.
“To Pfizer this was all about revenue,” Nussbaum said. “What this was
about from the very beginning was corporate profits, nothing more,
nothing less.”
Nussbaum said Kaiser took action to educate its doctors about Pfizer’s
off-label marketing as soon as the insurer learned about it in 2002,
“and prescriptions went down.”
Plaintiffs’ attorney Tom Greene said the drugmaker’s legal team
misrepresented the results of Pfizer’s own studies during the trial in
an effort to convince jurors the drug is effective.
‘Lied to You’
“They didn’t just lie to the medical community. They lied to you,”
said Greene, who told jurors he has been suing Pfizer over Neurontin
for 14 years, beginning with a former employee’s whistleblower claim.
Jurors deliberated briefly today before going home for the night. They
must decide whether Pfizer violated anti- racketeering laws by
committing fraud in promoting Neurontin off-label for bipolar
disorder, migraines and neuropathic pain. Pfizer also is accused of
misleading Kaiser in violation of California’s unfair competition law.
The trial began Feb. 22 with jury selection under the supervision of
U.S. District Judge Patti Saris, who is overseeing federal lawsuits
from throughout the U.S. targeting Pfizer with injury claims and
allegations of fraudulent sales and marketing of the drug.
A verdict in the case may influence other Neurontin suits against
Pfizer, the world’s largest drugmaker. In a ruling last year, Saris
said that fraud findings against Pfizer could be binding against the
New York-based company in future trials.
Warner-Lambert Plea
Like other third-party payers suing Pfizer, the health insurer claims
it would have saved money spent on off-label Neurontin prescriptions
if Pfizer hadn’t hidden the truth.
Warner-Lambert Co. developed and marketed Neurontin for several years
before Pfizer acquired the company in 2000. Four years later, Warner-
Lambert pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $430 million to resolve off-
label marketing allegations by the U.S. Justice Department.
The Justice Department claimed in a 2004 sentencing memorandum that
Warner-Lambert’s marketing increased off-label sales from 15 percent
of all Neurontin prescriptions in 1994, its first year on the market,
to 94 percent, or $2.12 billion, of Pfizer’s Neurontin sales in 2002.
“This is not the FDA proceeding. We lost that one,” Pfizer attorney
Kennedy said. “But off-label marketing is not fraud.”
He also suggested Kaiser deserves no damages because they passed the
drug costs on to customers by hiking premiums.
‘Academy Awards’
“Is Kaiser like those people who come to the Academy Awards and accept
for someone who can’t be there?” he asked. “Except Kaiser wants to
keep the statue for itself.”
In 2002, responding to press reports of Pfizer’s allegedly fraudulent
Neurontin marketing, Kaiser began an information campaign that led to
a 34 percent drop in Neurontin prescriptions to its members, according
to Saris.
Among the cases in Saris’s court are product-liability suits claiming
the drug is linked to an increased risk of suicide. The first trial in
one of those cases, over the suicide death of a 39-year-old woman,
ended when her family dropped the case.
In January, Saris dismissed fraud claims by Aetna Inc. and Guardian
Life Insurance Co. against Pfizer. Unlike those companies, Kaiser
showed it had considered Pfizer’s allegedly false claims and data in
deciding to pay for off-label Neurontin prescriptions, Saris ruled
before the trial.
Pfizer rose 39 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $17.54 in New York Stock
Exchange composite trading. The shares have climbed 25 percent in the
past year.
The case is In re Neurontin Marketing, Sales Practices and Products
Liability Litigation, MDL 1629, U.S. District Court, District of
Massachusetts (Boston).
--With assistance from Margaret Cronin Fisk in Southfield, Michigan.
Editors: Glenn Holdcraft, Steve Farr.
To contact the reporters on this story: Bob Van Voris in New York at
rvan...@bloomberg.net; Janelle Lawrence in Boston at
rvan...@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: David E. Rovella at
drov...@bloomberg.net.
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