NEW YORK, September 2 (RIA Novosti) - U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer will have to pay over $2 billion for fraudulent marketing of its products, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement on its website.
"Pfizer Inc. and its subsidiary Pharmacia & Upjohn Company Inc. have agreed to pay $2.3 billion, the largest health care fraud settlement in the history of the Department of Justice, to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from the illegal promotion of certain pharmaceutical products," the department said.
Pharmacia & Upjohn will pay a fine of $1.3 billion for promoting the sale of now-withdrawn anti-inflammatory drug Bextra "for several uses and dosages that the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] specifically declined to approve due to safety concerns."
In addition, Pfizer will pay $1 billion to resolve allegations that the company illegally promoted Bextra and three other drugs - anti-psychotic Geodon, antibiotic Zyvox, and anti-epileptic Lyrica - for "uses that were not medically accepted indications" and for inducing doctors to prescribe these drugs.
According to Pfizer's website, in 2007 the company earned $48.4 billion in revenues and invested $8.1 billion in research and development.
This is not the first scandal involving the pharmaceutical company, which offers many effective new-generation drugs.
In July, Pfizer and the Nigerian state of Kano agreed that the drugmaker will pay $75 million for the deaths of 11 children who had taken Pfizer's Trovan drug during a meningitis epidemic in the country in 1996.
