BrandweekNRX

Pfizer celebrates loss of qui tam appeal.

Pfizer statement: “We are pleased that the Court of Appeals has recognized that Mr. Rost failed to allege that any false claims were submitted relating to Genotropin, and that neither Pfizer nor Pharmacia submitted any false claims. We are confident that we will prevail once the matter returns to the District Court. As the Court of Appeals noted, Pfizer moved quickly to voluntarily and fully self-disclose the Genotropin promotional issues, which arose at Pharmacia before its acquisition by Pfizer.”

Say what? New $1 billion bet on inhaled insulin!

Pfizer recently created a complete flop out of a wonderful idea—inhaled insulin.

Exubera, the bong filled with insulin that patients could inhale only sold $12 million in the first nine months of the year and Pfizer recently said it would take a $2.8 billion charge and abandon the product.

Pfizer was in such a rush to kill Exubera, that they even failed to inform Nektar, the company from whom they had licensed the product. Nektar was reportedly not happy to read the news in a press release.

Pfizer’s failure resulted in lots of funny pictures of the Exubera bong on pharma blogs, such as the bird feeder, but now Mr. Ed Mann, the 82-year-old chief executive and controlling shareholder of the MannKind Corporation, has decided to go where Pfizer stumbled. And he is investing $1 billion of his own money to succeed.

New York Times has this amazing story.

So will he succeed?

On August 16, 2006 I wrote about Pfizer's insulin inhaler and said that “look at the Exubra inhaler! It is BIG. A foot long, when unfolded, which makes it feel like a baseball bat. Think your girlfriend would like to haul that out of her handbag while seated in a restaurant?Common sense, folks. Common sense. NO ONE would be caught dead with this foot long pocket rocket in their pocket. Or handbag.”

Unfortunately I was right, and Pfizer failed.

But Mr. Mann has the advantage of having a much smaller device, which no one should be embarassed to use.

He also claims there will be no adverse effect on lung function, but has yet to prove that assertion. If true, I think his new insulin may have a chance in the market place.

It may not become a billion dollar product, and he may not recoup his investment anytime soon, but he may get sales of $500 million per year.

If the FDA requires lung testing, however, all bets are off. After all, would YOU risk your ability to breath in order to avoid a small needle?

Pfizer supports Hillary Clinton for president!

A month ago BrandweekNRX revealed that Pfizer CEO Jeff Kindler supported Hillary Clinton for president through his personal contributions.

Based on the BrandweekNRX article Pfizer issued a statement about Kindler's donations: "These donations are distinct from Pfizer PAC, which supports candidates approved by an independent steering committee of employees."

BrandweekNRX can now reveal what Pfizer didn't say . . . that Pfizer's PAC ALSO SUPPORTS HILLARY CLINTON--TO THE TUNE OF $9,000.

Does Pfizer play legal roulette?

In an earlier article today BrandweekNRX described how the United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit vacated the decision by the Distric Court to dismiss Peter Rost's qui tam suit against Pfizer.

The Court of Appeals decision demonstrates how Pfizer CEO Jeff Kindler's strategy to play legal roulette, which Kindler described in a WSJ interview, can backfire.

Pfizer was encouraged by the Department of Justice to settle the civil qui tam suit, but chose not to.

Now they face the possibility of fines in excess of $100 million, should Rost prevail, in addition to the $35 million they already paid.

Back in 2006 Kindler told the Wall Street Journal, "By virtue of being a large company we have a lot of resources. So we can go to war for a long period of time with plaintiffs lawyers if we need to. None of these cases are threatening the financial viability of this enterprise. We have the resources to take them on and we manage them, I think, very effectively. Plaintiffs lawyers are in business like anybody else. They think about how to most quickly and most easily get their rewards from their business. So we're hoping that when a plaintiffs lawyer is thinking about who to go after maybe they'll think Pfizer's going to make it a little harder for me than so-and-so, so maybe I'll go after so-and-so."

Peter Rost, a former Pfizer VP, wins appeal in qui tam case against Pfizer Inc.

Peter Rost, the writer of BrandweekNRX, filed a qui tam suit against Pfizer Inc., during his employment as Vice President at Pfizer. The suit alleged illegal marketing of Genotropin, a growth hormone.

The information in the suit resulted in Pfizer paying a $34,7 million fine in April 2007, however, the district court ultimately held that "Rost failed to plead his fraud claims with sufficient specificity" and his civil suit was dismissed.

Yesterday the United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit vacated the decision by the distric court to dismiss Rost's suit, and concluded in its ruling, "The dismissal of the action is vacated. The case is remanded to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

What this means is that Rost gets an opportunity to amend his original complaint with additional information requested by the court.

Download United States Court of Appeals order.pdf

According to an earlier article in Brandweek, Rost's qui tam suit resulted in Pfizer paying "$34.7 million to end the investigation by the Department of Justice into the off-label marketing of its human-growth hormone brand, Genotropin, and allegations that a unit of the company made kickbacks to “an outside vendor” in order to increase its sales."

Pfizer admitted in its statement that a company it acquired, Pharmacia, “improperly promoted Genotropin between January 2000 and March 2003 for anti-aging purposes, improved athletic performance, and enhanced appearance.”

Please note that in the Government’s Sentencing Memorandum (download here), the Department of Justice states that the violations took place . . . “with the knowledge and approval of Pharmacia’s senior business executives.” (Page 8.)

Brandweek has the amazing and comprehensive story here.

Dr. Rost is a former VP of Pfizer engaged as a litigation consultant and marketing expert by several law firms.

Boy or girl?

Highlight text below image to find out.

Tanyarat Jirapatpakon was named Miss International Queen 2007 yesterday, besting 23 stunning transsexuals who had come to the Thai beach resort of Pattaya from as far as Germany and Puerto Rico for a shot at the diamond crown. Known in Thailand as "kathoey", or the third gender, Thai transsexuals have slowly been leaving cabarets for mainstream success in music and other endeavours, helped in part by the popularity of beauty contests.

Climbing stairs for seven minutes every day could reduce your risk of developing heart disease by about 60 percent.

And that's the message researchers tried at a suburban shopping mall in the U.K, by putting up signs along the steps of a staircase.

Over six weeks, use of the stairway next to an escalator more than doubled.

Normally, about 4 percent of people at the mall take the stairs but after adding the signs, that went up to nearly 10 percent. The findings were recently published in the American Journal of Health Promotion.

The researches estimated that climbing stairs for seven minutes every day could reduce your risk of developing heart disease by about 60 percent.

Love and death.

This is an amazing gravestone, commissioned by the spouse of Laurence Matheson, to show her love for him, after he died.

The sculpture (called "Asleep") was created from marble by the artist Peter Shipperheyn from Australia, and is located at the Mt. Macedon Cemetary, Victoria.

It seems hard to imagine a more moving good-bye.

Who's searching my name on Google?

Google Trend is a new tool which allows you to find out what country and what cities most often do searches on particular words or sentences on Google.

So I tried BrandweekNRX and Brandweek, but there weren't enough searches to give a result. Then I resorted to my own name. This is what I got. I guess my new book, Killer Drug, really went over well in Sweden . . .

By the way, should you try a few more explicit words, like "donkey sex," you will find that this is a favorite search in Pakistan.

Don't blame me. Just the facts.

I wouldn't want to be a donkey in Pakistan, though.

And guess what city is doing most searches for "torture"?

Washington, D.C.

And people looking for Viagra, appear to be located mainly in  Italy, UK and Germany.

Side effects: Compulsive gambling and sexual urges

This is the Consumer Report video which gave Glaxo a heart attack.

So much so that a "consumer group" for "restless leg syndrome" is now attacking the video which attacks the Glaxo Requip commercial.

This video was sponsored by: NO ONE. Consumers Reports takes no money from any sponsors.

Hat tip to Pharma Marketing Blog