Pfizer Inc. has agreed to pay $325 million to resolve claims it defrauded insurers and other healthcare benefit providers by marketing Neurontin for unapproved uses. In the decade old class action lawsuit, TBS client, ASEA/AFSCME Local 52 Health Benefits Trust (ASEA), alleged that Pfizer and Warner-Lambert Co. sold Neurontin in an effort to boost profits for uses for which Neurontin was neither approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration nor medically effective. In the lawsuit, ASEA said it bought or reimbursed patients for the purchase of Neurontin for unapproved uses from the defendants, or bought gabapentin, the chemical name for Neurontin, from Pfizer’s Greenstone LLC generic drug unit.
TBS attorney, Kim D. Stephens, with co-counsel Elizabeth J. Cabraser of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, represented ASEA, on behalf of the class in the litigation.