Two Florida residents who were prescribed the epilepsy drug Neurontin for so-called “off-label” uses filed a class action lawsuit against Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest drugmaker, for illegally promoting Neurontin for non-approved uses.
The lawsuit, filed in a Miami-Dade Circuit Court, says Warner Lambert and its Parke-Davis, Inc. subsidiary - both acquired by Pfizer in 2000 [...]

Florida Medicaid’s new policy will no longer pay for Neurontin, Zyprexa and so-called COX II pain relievers Celebrex, Vioxx and Bextra unless they are prescribed as listed on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration label, the Sun Sentinel reports.
The new policy ends coverage for many “off-label” uses, uses not approved by the FDA, forcing thousands [...]

Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, has agreed to plead guilty and pay more than $430 million to settle all criminal charges and civil liabilities related to the illegal and fraudulent promotion of unapproved uses for its top selling epilepsy drug Neurontin by Warner-Lambert’s Parke-Davis Division, the Justice Department said in a prepared statement [...]

Pfizer, the world’s largest drug maker, took one-time charges totaling $1.5 billion to forth-quarter earnings to cover resolution of two pending Warner-Lambert legal matters: Rezulin personal-injury claims and various governmental investigations of marketing practices related to Neurontin.
The first charge, for $955 million, is expected to be sufficient to cover all known personal-injury claims arising from [...]

Dr. David Franklin, a former Warner-Lambert medical liaison, says he had to blow the whistle on what he claims was an elaborate scheme to illegally promote Neurontin for at least 11 “off-label” uses, meaning for uses the Food and Drug Administration has not approved.
‘We were truly experimenting on patients, which put them at risk,’ [...]

Documents filed in U.S. District Court in Dr. David P. Franklin’s whistleblower lawsuit against Warner-Lambert and its parent company Pfizer Inc., allege they paid dozens of doctors tens of thousands of dollars each to promote Neurontin, an epilepsy drug, to other physicians for non-approved uses. The top spokesperson for Neurontin received than $300,000 for speeches [...]

According to internal company memos unsealed in a whistle-blower case, top executives at Warner-Lambert, a drug company that has since been acquired by Pfizer, approved a detailed plan to market Neurontin, an epilepsy medicine, for unapproved uses. At issue in the case is tens of millions of dollars that taxpayers paid for Neurontin when doctors [...]

Olympia, WA - The Washington state Attorney General’s Office is leading a national investigation into whether Pfizer illegally marketed Neurontin, an epilepsy medication, for “off-label” uses — meaning for uses that the FDA has not approved. Assistant Attorney General David Waterbury is leading the investigation on behalf of 47 states and the District of Columbia.
Doctors [...]