Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Johnson & Johnson Being Sued for Drug Conspiracy

Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is the subject of a California lawsuit alleging that the "family company" colluded with pharmaceutical consultant Omnicare to push its drugs on nursing home residents. Among the charges are allegations that J&J violated federal Medicaid laws with its schemes to maximize profits.

According to the suit, J&J was paying kickbacks to Omnicare to promote its drugs above those of other manufacturers, and convincing doctors that switching to J&J drugs was in their patients' best interests. The arrangement also included whitewashing these kickbacks as "performance rebates" that would be issued as "year-end bonuses."

"Residents were overcharged for their medications, had additional medications administered and were unlawfully switched to Johnson & Johnson drugs," explains the lawsuit. These medications included Floxin, Levaquin, Risperdal, Ultram, Duragesic, Procrit and Aciphex.

During their joint meetings to discuss "performance goals," J&J allegedly trained Omnicare employees to use "scripted communications" to convince physicians to switch their patients to J&J drugs as opposed to whatever they were currently on. This was included as part of the J&J's "Active Intervention Program," which basically is just a fancy name pushing its drugs on seniors.

Full Article and Source:
Johnson & Johnson Being Sued for Drug Conspiracy

2 comments:

Jean said...

It's what big pharma does. Big pharma doensn't really mind being sued; they've already made more profit by the wrongful use of the drug than they're being sued for.

Lenny said...

Big pharma has big pockets!