By Reuben Guttman and Traci Buschner. Mr. Guttman is a Senior Fellow and Adjunct Professor at the Emory Law School Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution, and a partner at the firm of Grant & Eisenhofer where he heads the firm's whistleblower practice. He is a founder of the website, Whistleblowerlaws. Ms. Buschner is a Senior Counsel with Grant & Eisenhofer. Mr. Guttman and Ms. Buschner were lead counsel for the lead whistleblower, Meredith McCoyd, in U.S. ex rel. McCoyd v. Abbott Labs.
Abbott Labs has agreed to pay $1.6 billion dollars to settle criminal and civil allegations that it engaged in
the unlawful marketing of its anti-epileptic drug Depakote.
The settlement arose out of a False Claims Act (FCA) case filed in the fall of 2007. Whistleblower or "Relator" Meredith McCoyd, alleged that the company marketed Depakote to elderly nursing home patients and to children for purposes that had not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Ms. McCoyd also alleged that Abbott made misrepresentations about the safety and efficacy of the drug and paid kickbacks to doctors and others.
This case was not just about lost government dollars. It was about a company that placed money over medicine by marketing unlawfully to vulnerable patient populations. And we still don't know what the long-term consequences are for those patients who took Depakote as a result of marketing improprieties.
Unfortunately, Abbott is not the first pharmaceutical company to face allegations of unlawful marketing tactics. Astra Zeneca, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer have all paid hefty fines following allegations of marketing derelictions.