Eli Lilly Faces New Lawsuits for Excess Zyprexa Sale

(April 21, 2006) -- Eli Lilly & Co, which settled litigation over its Zyprexa drug for $700 million last year, faces thousands of new patient claims, three state lawsuits and government probes into marketing of the schizophrenia pill. The new suits say, as the old ones did, that Indianapolis-based Lilly failed to warn that Zyprexa can cause diabetes and other illnesses. Patients also charge that Lilly improperly promoted Zyprexa, its top-selling drug, for uses not approved by regulators.

The litigation filed in the last year may cost the company more than the 2005 settlement, said Carl Tobias, a products-liability law professor at the University of Richmond Law School in Virginia.

“More and more people who have been injured or think they have been injured come forward,” said Mr Tobias, who teaches product liability. “It takes on a life of its own.”

Zyprexa, approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) in 1996 to treat two mental health conditions, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, provided Lilly with global sales of $4.2 billion in 2005, about 29% of Lilly’s total.

US sales of $2.04 billion were down 16% from 2004. Zyprexa is losing ground to rival products promoted as having fewer side effects, analysts said. Lilly has reserves of $1.07 billion to cover the $700 million settlement and other legal costs related to Zyprexa, the company said last year. The settlement resolved 70% of the 8,000 cases that were pending, Tarra Ryker, a Lilly spokesperson, said in an interview on April 12.

Source: UPI

Last updated: 04/06

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