Seroquel Documents: Sex For Positive Seroquel Studies Included Bondage, Corporate Espionage

Late last week, Jim Edwards at BNET.com had a fine piece detailing some of the sex-for-Seroquel-studies emails which I first reported on last month. It appears, as I reported back then, that Wayne Macfadden, AstraZeneca's former US Seroquel medical director, used sex (and bondage even) to get competitive intell on Abilify and, yes indeed, even suggested prescribing Vicodin, a narcotic pain killer, to a ghostwriter with Parexel MMS. I simply love how Big Pharma does business and I love the fact that the FDA continues to blow off my questions as to whether it has any qualms about its approval of Seroquel for bipolar depression (in 2006) since Macfadden was in charge of the studies, authored some of them, and clearly was putting out questionable research. You'd think the FDA would want to give it all a little look-see, but no. The FDA doesn't care.

The details of the emails speak for themselves. Apologies for the formatting, which I cannot get fixed. The "Q" is a plaintiff's attorney and the "A" is Macfadden:

Q: Do you believe, in your roles as the senior director of clinical research, you acted with honor, integrity and ethics? A: In my professional responsibilities, yes. Q: Why are you qualifying that answer, sir? A: There are things in my personal life that I have regrets about.

Here comes the affair with a psychiatric researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, which has also refused to answer questions.

Q: Sir, the truth of the matter is, you were having an illicit sexual affair with REDACTED weren’t you? A: I was having a personal affair with REDACTED yes. Q: You were having an intimate affair with REDACTED and you were doing it on company time, and you were doing it when you were a researcher for AstraZeneca, correct? A: I would see REDACTED Usually, to the best of my recollection, it was off hours, but I can’t state for sure if that’s all true. Q: It wasn’t all true was it? Y’all arranged to meet at conferences on the company dollar, right? A: We would meet occasionally at conferences, yes. Q: And in hotel rooms that the company paid for, AstraZeneca paying for both hotel rooms, right? A: My travel was generally reimbursed by AstraZeneca, yes.

Now for Abilify and attempted corporate espionage:

[Lawyer reads from an email]Q: Let’s read it. Hey, “Babe, just as a friendly reminder, as requested, to obtain info from BMS re bipolar depression, specifically, when they plan to complete their trials & when they plan to file in the U.S….”… That’s insider competitive information from Bristol-Myers Squibb on the product Abilify’s filing for bipolar depression, correct?

A: To the best of my knowledge I never received information from REDACTED or anyone else about this.

Now for Ms. Parexel:

Q: By the way, you were having an illicit sexual affair with REDACTED too, weren’t you? A: Yes. Q: She’s another person who was involved in studies, this time at Parexel, right? A: She was an employee at Parexel, which is a company was involved with the publication process, yes.

Q:… because of the relationship that you had with this researcher REDACTED the executive over at Parexel, that’s what got you in the position where you were given an opportunity to resign, right?
A: AstraZeneca confronted me with personal emails. To my recollection they were between REDACTED and I, and they eventually offered me the opportunity to resign. That’s it.

And, now some of an email from the IOP researcher to Macfadden:

Jan. 13, 2006, from REDACTED to MacFadden: "Just a quickie as I’m writing frantically at my desk trying to finish my quetiapine paper; hope your day is going well. Was wondering if you have access to a paper (you won’t like it much because it says that quetiapine isn’t as effective as olanzapine or risperidone!!!)…In fact I will probably need to be punished for even looking at it.”

MacFadden’s Reply:

"Hi, doll, logged off early to hang with the kids … hope this is not getting to you too late!!! And yes, you will be punished (in the usual fashion!) when I see you … but perhaps more harshly this time!!!"

In the deposition, MacFadden said this:

A: I believe this is a reference to sexual play.
Q: Bondage?
A: Perhaps.

What a sexy guy Macfadden is. This is how research is getting done people. Isn't it amazing? Isn't it amazing that the FDA, the IOP, Parexel and the journals where Macfadden published on Seroquel all don't care and none of them will answer questions?

I'm sorry to keep harping on this sort of thing, but pharmaceutical research and its intersection with academia is so corrupt that...that I really don't know what to say anymore.

Macfadden resigned from AZ in 2006. The rumor mill tells me that he now works for J&J/Janssen in some capacity, perhaps as the chief bondage officer in charge of Invega studies.