Pfizer pleads guilty in painkiller case

Sep 032009

FT.com / Companies / Pharmaceuticals – Pfizer agrees to plead guilty in painkiller case.

Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical group, on Wednesday agreed to plead guilty to illegally promoting its painkiller Bextra, as part of a record-breaking $2.3bn final settlement reached with federal and state authorities across the US.

The company signed a “corporate integrity agreement” with the Department of Health and Human Services requiring regular and independently audited re ports over five years de signed to ensure im proved marketing practices.

But of course no company would ever do transfer mispricing.

This was fraud.

So is transfer mispricing.

Apologists for big business deny such fraud exists and promote research methods to find it that cannot work.

It’s time we admitted the truth: busuiness is willing to be fraudulent when it thinks it can get away with it. It does so at cost to us all. This is not victimless crime. And the campaigns I am involved with seek to tackle those crimes.

Honest business should support what we do. So far none have. Doesn’t that say it all?

One Response to “Pfizer pleads guilty in painkiller case”

Contractor Southampton says:

September 4 2009 at 3:12 pm

For anyone who’s interested in how the pharma industry works, its worth reading Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. Very illuminating.
I particularly like the fact that they spend more on marketing than they do on research….