Despite the fact that the drug Zyprexa isn't approved to treat dementia and it also carries a formidable warning that it increases the risk of death in older patients with dementia-related psychosis, Eli Lilly (LLY) encouraged primary care physicians to use the drug for elderly patients with symptoms of dementia.
A NYTimes.com article stated that in 1999 and 2000 Lilly considered ways to convince primary care doctors that they should use Zyprexa on their patients. A Lilly company spokesperson said they have never prescribed the drug for any conditions other than schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, which the drug was intended to treat.
Marketing documents given to The New York Times by a lawyer representing mentally ill patients that detail a multiyear promotional campaign, would beg to differ. The campaign was called Viva Zyprexa and it told its sales reps to suggest that doctors use the drug to treat older patients with dementia.
The drug company's spokesperson tried to explain that some older patients who seem to have dementia might actually have schizophrenia that has gone untreated although several psychiatrists outside the company said they strongly disagreed with Lilly's claim. Schizophrenia is a severe disease that is almost always diagnosed when patients are in their teens or 20s. Its symptoms could not be confused with mild dementia, these doctors said.
By March 2001, about three months after the start of Viva Zyprexa, the campaign had led to 49,000 new prescriptions - doubling sales between 1999 and 2002 from $1.5 billion to $3 billion in the U.S. - according to a presentation that Michael Bandick, the brand manager for Zyprexa, gave at a national meeting of Lilly sales representatives in Dallas. Mr. Bandick did not say how many of those new prescriptions were for older patients with dementia.
Eli Lilly zyprexa scandal
Zyprexa off label promotion scandal is all over the news now.
Lilly drug reps are alleged to have called their marketing ploy,"Viva zyprexa".
Eli Lilly zyprexa cost me over $250.00 a month supply out of my own pocket X 4 years and has up to ten times the risk (over non users) of causing diabetes and severe weight gain.
Zyprexa which is only FDA approved for schizophrenia (.5-1% of pop) and some bipolar (2% pop) and then an even smaller percentage of theses two groups.
So how does Zyprexa get to be the 7th largest drug sale in the world?
Eli Lilly is in deep trouble for using their drug reps to 'encourage' doctors to write zyprexa for non-FDA approved 'off label' uses.
The drug causes increased diabetes risk,and medicare picks up all the expensive fallout.There are now 7 states (and counting) going after Lilly for fraud and restitution.
Only 9 percent of adult Americans think the pharmaceutical industry can be trusted right around the same rating as big tobacco.
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Daniel Haszard zyprexa-victims.com
Posted by: Daniel Haszard | December 18, 2006 12:57 PM | Permalink to Comment