Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP today announced that a class action has been commenced in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of shareholders of Pfizer Inc. Pfizer is a pharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery, development, manufacture, and marketing of prescription medicines for humans and animals worldwide. The lawsuit announced today alleges that Pfizer misled investors by failing to disclose that they were engaged in an ongoing course of conduct designed to illegally promote the sale of Pfizer drugs, including Bextra, Geodon, Zyvox and Lyrica. By such conduct, Pfizercaused hundreds of millions of dollars in false or fraudulent claims to be submitted to several federal healthcare programs, thus exposing the Company to untold legal liability.
It’s estimated that between the years 2007 and 2009, Pfizer paid out nearly $3.58 billion from lawsuits, and with consideration to all the recent mergers that number is expected to rise. The most publicized of the current lawsuits is a suit brought against Pfizer by the FDA on charges of fraudulent marketing of its drugs. On January 26, 2009, Washington government attorneys settled a lawsuit against pharmaceutical manufacturer, Pfizer Inc., recovering largest civil liabilities in U.S. history. The allegations by government attorneys involved criminal and civil liabilities surrounding the recalled anti-inflammatory medication, Bextra. Pfizer will pay $2.3 billion for its fraudulent marketing practices which violated the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Two similar lawsuits have cost Pfizer a combined $109.4 million in damages for failure to disclose harmful side-affects of a popular hormone therapy drug manufactured by Pfizer.
Although the size of the payouts faced by Pfizer may seem phenomenally large, however, looking at Pfizer’s revenue figures reveals that the total cost of the lawsuits, when divided between the three years during which it is accumulated, accounts for less than 2% of the company’s average yearly revenues.
Copyright © 2010 The Filutowski Law Firm, PLLC. If you have been injured by a Pfizer drug, contact Alexandra Filutowski. This post is intended for general information purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice or legal opinions on any specific facts or circumstances. An attorney-client relationship is not created by reading this post. If you would like further information regarding the matters discussed herein, you may post a comment.
