Schering-Plough Defends Suits over Marketing of Off-Label Drug Uses
Schering-Plough Corp. faces federal court litigation over promotion of its drugs for uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Eight putative class action suits are pending. The suits come in the wake of an August 2006 agreement by which the Kenilworth drug maker agreed to pay $435 million to settle criminal and civil charges over its drug-marketing practices. The government had alleged kickbacks to physicians and aggressive promotion of drugs for unapproved uses. The pending suits concern the drugs Intron, approved by the FDA for chronic hepatitis, AIDS-related Kaposi's Scarcoma, melanoma and lymphoma; Temodar, for certain brain tumors; Eulexin, for prostate cancer; PEG-Intron, for chronic hepatitis; Rebeton, for hepatitis C; Integrilin, for heart conditions; and Fareston, for breast cancer.
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