SC Says Lilly, Doctors Made Golf Bets Over Zyprexa

By Erin Coe

Law360, New York (September 08, 2009) -- In its suit against Eli Lilly & Co., the state of South Carolina reportedly has disclosed notes from company sales representatives that indicate the pharmaceutical giant used golf bets to spur prescriptions of antipsychotic treatment Zyprexa and paid doctors to take part in a speakers program in return for prescribing the drug.

Counsel for South Carolina revealed the notes Tuesday at a hearing on Lilly’s motion to dismiss before a South Carolina trial court as the state geared up for a Sept. 14 trial in its case accusing Lilly of improperly promoting Zyprexa for off-label uses, according to a news report by Bloomberg.

In one of the notes obtained by Bloomberg, a doctor agreed during a golf game to put a new patient on Zyprexa every time a Lilly salesman parred, or got the ball in the hole within a set number of strokes.

“I got four pars out of nine holes,” Lilly salesman Vince Sullivan said in a February 2002 note. “I said I wanted my four new patients.”

Another note by Sullivan mentioned that he was urging a doctor to write additional Zyprexa prescriptions “because we’re paying him so much money” to be part of a speakers program intended to inform physicians about the drug’s benefits, according to Bloomberg.

An attorney representing South Carolina told the court Tuesday that Lilly also tried to get doctors to prescribe Zyprexa for off-label uses, such as depression and agitation, by offering them fishing trips and Palm Pilots, the news report said.

The attorney also claimed that internal notes showed that Lilly officials used the code word “diamond” to discuss the company’s off-label efforts and that the company tried to press doctors to prescribe Zyprexa for children, according to Bloomberg.

An Eli Lilly spokeswoman told Bloomberg the notes were “taken out of context” and no physician in the state has testified that Lilly marketed off-label uses to doctors.

South Carolina is looking to recover $200 million that it claims it was overcharged on Zyprexa prescriptions based on Lilly’s alleged campaign to get doctors to prescribe the drug — which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration only for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder — for unapproved uses, according to the news report.

The state is also asking for a $5,000 fine on the company for each Zyprexa prescription since 1997, which could lead to billions of dollars in fines, according to Bloomberg.

Other states have already settled their Zyprexa claims against Lilly, but attorneys general from Idaho, Louisiana and Mississippi still have cases pending in federal courts, while attorneys general from South Carolina, Arkansas, Pennsylvania and Utah still have cases pending in state courts, according to court documents in West Virginia’s case against Lilly, which was resolved in July when the company agreed to pay $22.5 million to the state without admitting any wrongdoing.

Troubles with Zyprexa — one of the biggest-selling drugs in the world — date back to March 2004, when the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania told Lilly it was investigating the company's marketing and promotional practices for the drugs Zyprexa and Prozac.

Since then, over 30,000 individual product liability lawsuits have come in, alleging that Zyprexa caused deleterious side effects such as excessive weight gain, hyperglycemia and diabetes, and that the company misled patients about the likelihood of those side effects.

Claims have also been filed against Lilly alleging that it unlawfully encouraged off-label uses of Zyprexa.

About 8,000 plaintiffs agreed to participate in a $700 million settlement in November 2005, and another 18,000 agreed in January 2007 to share approximately $495 million. Other settlements have also been reached.

And in January, Lilly agreed to pay about $1.4 billion to settle claims brought by 30 states.

South Carolina is represented in this matter by Simmons Law Firm LLC. Representation information for Eli Lilly in the state matter was not available at the time of publication.

The case is state of South Carolina v. Eli Lilly & Co., 2007-cp-42-1855, in the Common Pleas Court for South Carolina’s Seventh Judicial Circuit.

The MDL is In re: Zyprexa Products Liability Litigation, case number 04-md-01596, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

--Additional reporting by Jesse Greenspan and Erin Marie Daly