Healthy Skepticism Library item: 8629
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: news
Olson J.
Twin Cities / Drug sales reps sue over firing
St. Paul Pioneer Press 2007 Feb 14
http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/news/local/16692472.htm
Full text:
Two women say their criticism of off-label marketing was reason for dismissal
Two former sales employees of Centocor, a drug manufacturer, are claiming they were fired for criticizing the company’s marketing of Remicade, a potent treatment for rheumatoid arthritis.
Centocor encouraged doctors to use Remicade for “off-label” treatments that weren’t OK’d by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and promoted how much money the doctors could make by administering the drug, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.
FDA regulations generally prohibit such marketing to prevent prescriptions that are unsafe or financially motivated. Similar allegations in 2003 prompted an investigation by the New York attorney general and an internal review by Johnson & Johnson, which is Centocor’s parent company.
Melissa Funk, of Apple Valley, and Heidi Greer, of Excelsior, are seeking financial compensation for the loss of their jobs and a court injunction blocking Centocor from improper marketing. They offered one example in their lawsuit: a computer slideshow Centocor used to show doctors how they could profit by billing the federal Medicare system for Remicade. It made a cash register’s “ka-ching” sound as it switched between slides.
The lawsuit is entangled with the ongoing state investigation of the Parker Hughes Clinics in Roseville, which was accused of profiting from inappropriate or questionable treatments to patients with cancer or other diseases. Parker Hughes provided Remicade to patients with rheumatoid arthritis and other immune system diseases until last year, when it closed its immunology clinic amid financial pressures.
According to the Centocor lawsuit, Funk and Greer were fired after executives with the Pennsylvania company questioned the women about their marketing of Remicade to Parker Hughes.
Both were told they were fired for taking a client to a strip club, but the workers claimed in the lawsuit that many of their male co-workers had done the same and remain employed.
A spokesman from Centocor declined to comment on the employee lawsuit.
Remicade is an intravenous solution first approved in 1998 for treatment of Crohn’s disease. It was approved by the FDA for rheumatoid arthritis a year later and has since been approved for ulcerative colitis and for psoriasis, a skin disease.
Centocor has issued several warnings, though, as broad use of the drug revealed a variety of rare but severe side effects, including severe infections or nervous system disorders such as multiple sclerosis.
In 2005, the FDA warned that some of Centocor’s marketing materials lacked information about the risks and overstated Remicade’s potential benefits.
Last month, a Texas jury awarded $19 million to a woman who suffered lupus as a result of taking Remicade. The jury found Centocor largely at fault for consumer marketing that provided the woman with little information about Remicade’s risks.
Jeremy Olson can be reached at jolson@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5583.
