Putting Pfizer’s $2.3b Drug Bust in Perspective September 15, 2009
Posted by Charles Bosdet in Pharmaceuticals.Tags: advertising, drugs, fine, illegal marketing, lawsuit, off label, pfizer, Pharmaceuticals, promotion, qui tam, whistleblower
add a comment
In this week’s edition, The New Scientist adds a bit of perspective to what Associate U.S. Attorney-General Thomas Perelli called ”the largest criminal fine in history,” leveled against pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. Pfizer was charged with illegally marketing drugs for “off-label” purposes, treatments for which the drugs had not been tested and granted FDA approval.
By any standard, the $2.3 billion sum that pharmaceutical giant Pfizer will pay to settle charges of improper drug promotion is big. But will it change anything?
Doctors can prescribe medications in situations other than those approved by drug regulators, but drug firms in the U.S. are not allowed to promote these “off-label” uses.
The payout settles claims by whistleblowers and the U.S. government that Pfizer broke these rules for a range of drugs including the painkiller Bextra, pulled from the market in 2005 because of evidence suggesting it might increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.
The sum represents less than three weeks of sales for Pfizer, based on 2008 figures …
Less than three weeks of sales.
Shame, Pfizer! Go to your room.
Advertising Pays June 16, 2009
Posted by Charles Bosdet in advertising, Automobiles, Humor, Revenge.Tags: advertising, Automobiles, customer relations, Land Rover, lemons, Revenge
add a comment
Apparently the “laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone” school of automobile ownership didn’t appeal to an unhappy Range Rover owner in the United Kingdom.
“Rover’s revenge” headlines the London Daily Mail Online, which says the anonymous owner, more inured to making lemonade of his lemon and sharing it with others, emblazoned the windows of his £50,000 Sport HSE with a laundry list of woes and parked the car in front of the Range Rover dealership in Colchester, Essex.
Large, lemon-yellow vinyl lettering on the body of the car advises:
IF YOU WANT TROUBLE FREE MOTORING DO NOT BUY ONE OF THESE !!!
As moved as the dealership may have been by the display, it reportedly could not move the car because it’s on a public road.
What to do, what to do?
Take a cue from your customer: Make lemonade.
A Jaguar Land Rover spokesman, the Mail reports, noted Rover has “a comprehensive warranty program and a strong goodwill policy,” and that Rover has “made a goodwill offer towards helping [the customer] into a new vehicle.”
One loose end: The Mail does not say whether Rover will load the disgruntled customer into another Rover or someone else’s brand–anyone else’s brand.
