AstraZeneca lo hace mal y paga...

En febrero publicamos:

Medicina basada en el ´marketing´ (II)

basándonos en lo publicado por Ainhoa Iriberri en PUBLICO.
Se denunciaban las prácticas internas (ghostwriting) de AZ para maquillar resultados de investigación clínica haciéndolos "acordes" a los intereses del marketing.

Ahora "paga":

"AstraZeneca has completed a deal to pay $520 million to settle federal investigations into marketing practices for its blockbuster schizophrenia drug, Seroquel. The Justice Department plans a news conference on Wednesday to disclose details of the case, according to two people close to the negotiations who were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

.../...

The company was facing two federal investigations and two whistle-blower lawsuits involving Seroquel sales and marketing practices. One of the investigations related to physicians who had participated in clinical trials. The other inquiry involved sales staff. Details are expected to be announced Wednesday.

Prácticas en las que, añade The New York Times, no está sola:

"The company will join a series of American pharmaceutical companies that have admitted to illegal marketing after federal investigations and whistle-blower filings and have signed agreements with the government to monitor and avoid such activity in the future.

In the largest such case, Pfizer paid $2.3 billion last September, including $1.3 billion in the biggest criminal fine of any type in United States history, for off-label marketing of the painkiller Bextra and other drugs. Bextra was withdrawn from the market in 2005. The Pfizer fine included $301 million for off-label marketing of its antipsychotic drug Geodon.

Eli Lilly paid $1.4 billion in January 2009 to settle investigations into illegal marketing of its antipsychotic drug Zyprexa. Lilly’s settlement included a $515 million criminal fine, which until the Pfizer case was the largest such fine ever imposed on a corporation.

In 2007, Bristol-Myers Squibb and a subsidiary paid $515 million to settle federal and state investigations into marketing of its antipsychotic drug Abilify."