Joseph L. Messa Drug and Medical Device Litigation Law Blog on Lawyers.com

State officials in Texas are asking Johnson & Johnson and Janssen, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, to pay at least $579 million
in damages for defrauding the state’s Medicaid program by promoting
Risperdal for uses not approved by U.S. regulators, in particular, for
children with psychiatric disorders. The pharmaceutical giant has also
been accused of misleading doctors and regulators about the drug’s
risks. In addition to internal company records, the state says that
salespeople falsely claimed Risperdal was superior to rival drugs in
sales calls with doctors saying it wasn’t linked to diabetes for more
than a decade. The director of Texas’s Medicaid program also testified
that the state spent additional money paying for Risperdal prescriptions
because of false claims Janssen made about Risperdal’s diabetes risk
and its aggressive efforts to market the medication for unapproved uses.

A witness testified in court this week that Johnson & Johnson
discovered that about half of the patients taking Risperdal developed
diabetes within a year of taking the drug as early as 1999, when a study
compared the risks of Risperdal to a similar antipsychotic drug. The
study concluded that Risperdal caused “medically serious weight gain,”
leading to the development of diabetes. The company did not release the
results of that or two others studies that later found similar personal
injury risks associated with the drug.

This is not the first time Johnson & Johnson is in trouble for
choosing to ignore patient safety. Last year, a South Carolina judge
ordered Janssen to pay more than $327 million in damages for falsely
marketing Risperdal in that state. The judge cited the withheld studies
in his decision, saying:

“information was not disclosed because it did not fit the
marketing department’s vision for the promotion and marketing of this
drug.”

In September of last year, Johnson & Johnson paid $85 million for the mislabeling of an acute heart failure drug called Natrecor, and DePuy, an orthopaedic division of Johnson & Johnson, is currently under fire for defective hip implants.

The Philadelphia personal injury attorneys at Messa & Associates
are experienced in handling cases involving pharmaceutical and drug
product injuries. Our extremely skilled team of personal injury
attorneys and medical experts is dedicated to ensuring you receive
proper compensation for your personal injuries. If you have been injured
by a pharmaceutical drug, a negligent medical provider, or have endured
any other type of personal injury, contact the Philadelphia personal
injury attorneys of Messa & Associates for a free consultation. Call
toll free at 1-877-MessaLaw, or submit a free online inquiry.