{"id":544645,"date":"2010-04-27T12:14:31","date_gmt":"2010-04-27T16:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aboutlawsuits.com\/?p=9898"},"modified":"2010-04-27T19:03:39","modified_gmt":"2010-04-27T23:03:39","slug":"settlement-over-seroquel-reached-for-520m-with-dept-of-justice-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/544645","title":{"rendered":"Settlement Over Seroquel Reached for $520M with Dept. of Justice: Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

AstraZeneca has agreed to pay the U.S. government $520 million to settle charges over Seroquel, resolving a federal probe that accused the drug maker of illegally promoting their popular antipsychotic medication for non-approved uses.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

The settlement over Seroquel is expected to be announced Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), according to a report by the New York Times<\/a>. AstraZeneca will not admit to wrongdoing in the settlement, and will enter into a corporate integrity agreement with DOJ.<\/p>\n

Seroquel<\/a>\u00a0(quetiapine fumarate) is an atypical-antipsychotic that is a top selling drug for AstraZeneca, generating nearly $5 billion a year in sales. Originally approved by the FDA in 1997 for the treatment of schizophrenia, it has been frequently prescribed off-label for uses that were not approved as safe and effective at the time, such as anxiety, obsessive dementia, compulsive disorders and autism. <\/p>\n

While doctors are free to prescribe approved medications for non-approved uses, drug makers are barred from promoting or encouraging such “off-label” use. Since it was approved, Seroquel has been used by more than 19 million people worldwide, and some people have estimated that at one time as much as 70% of all seroquel prescriptions were for unapproved uses.<\/p>\n

According to internal company documents uncovered through Seroquel litigation<\/a>, off-label promotion of the drug has been a key marketing strategy for AstraZenca since at least 2000. During pretrial proceedings in lawsuits over Seroquel<\/a> filed by consumers who developed diabetes and other health problems after using the drugs, company papers were released that had the stated objective to \u201ccontinue to encourage off-label use of Seroquel for the treatment of bipolar disorders through publications presented at major congresses,\u201d even though treatment of bipolar disorders was not approved at the time.<\/p>\n

The company first announced it had reached an agreement in principle to settle the Seroquel case<\/a> with the DOJ in a November filing with the U.S. Security Exchange Commission (SEC).<\/p>\n

In addition to the federal probe, AstraZeneca faces an estimated 26,000 Seroquel lawsuits<\/a> in state and federal courts throughout the United States involving allegations that the drug maker failed to adequately warn about the risk of serious side effects. In November 2009, a federal judge presiding over thousands of cases ordered both sides to meet with a mediator to see if there is any possibility for a settlement of Seroquel injury cases<\/a> before individual trial dates are scheduled in federal district courts throughout the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AstraZeneca has agreed to pay the U.S. government $520 million to settle charges over Seroquel, resolving a federal probe that accused the drug maker of illegally promoting their popular antipsychotic medication for non-approved uses.\u00a0\u00a0 The settlement over Seroquel is expected to be announced Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), according to a report […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3957,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-544645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544645\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}