Accused of knowingly selling contaminated drugs, British drug giant GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to pay $750 million to settle criminal and civil charges of health care fraud.
The settlement is among the biggest in the continuing parade of huge deals cut by big drug companies to resolve whistleblower lawsuits brought under the False Claims Act.
The New York Times reports, however, that the case opens a new frontier for such whistleblower suits because it is the first successful case to assert that a drug maker knowingly sold contaminated products. Most of the previous cases against the drug industry involved illegal marketing practices.
In all, The Times says, Glaxo sold 20 drugs of questionable safety made at a now-closed plant in Cidra, Puerto Rico, that for years was rife with contamination.
The drugs range from baby ointment to antidepressants, and include such names as Avandia, Paxil, Tagamet, Bactroban and Coreg.
Whistle-blower Cheryl D. Eckard, a former global quality assurance manager for Glaxo, brought her case in 2004. She took action, court papers say, after discovering a litany of problems, including: a contaminated water system, an air system that allowed cross contamination between products, inability to ensure the sterility of cancer drugs and procedures that allowed pills of differing strengths mixed in the same bottles.
Eckard asserted that she complained to the company about the problems but was ignored, and then laid off, before she sued.
“This is not something I wanted to do, but because of patient safety it was necessary,” Eckard, 51, told reporters after a Justice Department news conference in Boston. She will receive $96 million from the settlement money.
Tuesday’s announcement came as little surprise. Glaxo announced in July that it was setting aside $2.36 billion to cover legal expenses, including an agreement in principle that had already been reached with the Justice Department to settle charges involving the Puerto Rico plant.
In an emailed statement, a Glaxo official said: “We regret that we operated the Cidra facility in a manner that was inconsistent with current Good Manufacturing Practice requirements and with GSK’s commitment to manufacturing quality,”
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Glaxo whistle-blower gets millions
The deal with Zyprexa is that Eli Lilly pleaded guilty to criminal wrongs (“viva Zyprexa” campaign) the Zyprexa saga was rotten through and through.
Eight Lilly EMPLOYEES got millions each as supposed informant ‘whistle blowers’.Lawyers on BOTH sides got millions and millions……most patient claimants who got sick are ‘mentally challenged’ and less able to advocate for themselves.
The Class action Lawsuits in the US had payouts of $85,000 BUT the lawyers got 45 percent and then the govt got most of the rest for having to take care of the victim/patients medical expenses.Soooo,$85K turned into about $9,000 for Zyprexa claimants many had their food stamps and other state benefits taken away because of their *windfall profit* making them worse off in the end.
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Daniel Haszard Zyprexa victim activist and patient who got diabetes from it.