J&J Pushed Risperdal for Kids Without Approval, Memo Shows
January 20, 2012, 11:59 AM ESTBy Jef Feeley, Margaret Cronin Fisk and David Voreacos
(Updates with details from Janssen executive’s testimony starting in fifth paragraph.)
Jan. 17 (Bloomberg) -- A Johnson & Johnson unit marketed its Risperdal drug in 2004 to doctors working with troubled children even though regulators hadn’t approved the drug for those patients, company records show.
Officials of J&J’s Janssen unit pushed salespeople in Texas to “flood clinics with Risperdal stuff” as part of a 2004 campaign to increase prescriptions for the anti-psychotic drug written for children and adolescents, according to an internal memo put into evidence today in state court in Austin, Texas. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration didn’t approve Risperdal for any pediatric use until 2006.
Texas officials contend New Brunswick, New Jersey-based J&J, the world’s largest health-care products company, defrauded the state Medicaid program by promoting Risperdal for uses not approved by U.S. regulators, including for children with psychiatric disorders. The state joined a lawsuit filed by a whistle-blower, Allen Jones, a former Pennsylvania health-care fraud investigator.
Lawyers for Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott are asking jurors to award the state at least $579 million from J&J and Janssen in damages over the companies’ marketing program for the anti-psychotic medicine.
Shane Scott, a former Janssen sales manager in Texas, testified he got a memo from his superiors in the summer of 2004 calling for a push to market Risperdal to treat attention- deficit syndrome in kids at the beginning of a new school year.
The campaign’s goal was to position Risperdal to compete with rival anti-psychotic drugs, such as AstraZeneca Plc’s Seroquel and Eli Lilly & Co.’s Zyprexa, Scott said.
“When kids are back in school, they are more likely to take their ADD meds,” Scott testified during a videotaped deposition that was played for jurors.
The case is Texas v. Janssen LP, D-1GV-04-001288, District Court, Travis County, Texas (Austin).
--Editors: Glenn Holdcraft, Peter Blumberg
To contact the reporters on this story: Jef Feeley in Wilmington, Delaware, at jfeeley@bloomberg.net; Margaret Cronin Fisk in Detroit at mcfisk@bloomberg.net; David Voreacos in Newark, New Jersey, at dvoreacos@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net
