Documents Show Lexapro Promoted By Tens Of Millions In Doctor Lunches, Lectures

Apparently a copy of Forest Labs marketing plan to Lexapro has been circulating through the US Senate and the New York Times has an article on it. Lexapro racked up $2.3 billion in sales in 2008, even though there are substantial questions about whether it works any better than Celexa (much less other anti-depressants), another Forest anti-depressant from which it is derived and which is now available as a generic drug.

The marketing plan is linked on the NYT's website, but I've not been able to download it yet as the paper's website is having some hiccups today. so from the NYT article itself:

"Forest’s 2004 plan for marketing Lexapro offers detailed information about how the company planned to direct this money to doctors.

"Under 'Rep Promotional Programs,' the document said the company planned to spend $34.7 million to pay 2,000 psychiatrists and primary care doctors to deliver 15,000 marketing lectures to their peers over the course of one year.

"'These meetings may be large-scale dinner programs with a slide presentation, small roundtable discussions or one-on-one advocate lunches,' the document states.

"Under 'Lunch and Learns,' the company intended to spend $36 million providing lunch to doctors in their offices. 'Providing lunch for a physician creates an extended amount of selling time for representatives,' the document states.

"An entire section of the marketing plan, titled 'Continuing Medical Education,' outlines how the company intended to use educational seminars for doctors to teach them about Lexapro. The Senate’s Special Committee on Aging held a hearing in July on whether industry funding of medical education classes leads to tainted talks."

Forest is in hot water with the Department of Justice, which earlier this year alleged the company had engaged in illegal kickbacks to doctors to entice them to prescribe Celexa and Lexapro and that it had illegally marketed the drugs for use in kids. The company has already set aside $170 million in anticipation of a fine from the feds.

Despite having two failed clinical trials and unimpressive efficacy over placebo in two other trials, the FDA approved Lexapro earlier this year for the treatment of major depression in 12 to 17 year olds.