Comments: The Zyprexa Chronicles: Breaking: Lilly Settles With Alaska For $15 Million
Nonetheless, each settlement--even if it is small--stacks up against them as pseudo-precedent. Let's wait until more US states dig in...
Posted by Brad at March 26, 2008 05:27 AM
Well, the state of Alaska settled for less than the victims of Wesbecker's Prozac rampage.
Although the settlement in the Wesbecker Prozac civil trial was secret [even from the judge and the jury who continued the case to a verdict], about two years later one of the survivors divorced and his financial assets had to be revealed. By counting the number of people who were involved in the case, plus the lawyers cut, the secret settlement was tabulated at 33 million.
I wonder why Alaska settled so cheaply. I think they could have gotten more.
Posted by Rosie at March 26, 2008 08:09 AM
This really stinks in my opinion. How does Lilly get away with this? Reminds me of GSK settling with the state of NY over Paxil for 2.5 million or something ridiculous. Why doesn't someone calculate how long it takes Lilly to generate $15 million in sales (or even profits) of Zyprexa? Probably about 15 minutes. Furthermore how long would that last if it were actually compensation for the way in which a handful of victims' lives were ruined -- again not very long. And there are far more than a handful of victims out there even just in the state of Alaska. Corporations have too much power and it's darn frightening how they get away with it.
Posted by Sara at March 26, 2008 09:17 AM
It wasn't rosy. Nonetheless I think it will contribute to a trend:
year/zyprexa sales/total US sales, in USD (billions):
1996 0.09 4.2 (three months)
1997 0.59 5.41
1998 1.12 5.84
1999 1.37 6.23
2000 1.69 7
2001 2.18 7.36
2002 2.53 6.54
2003 2.64 7.17
2004 2.42 7.67
2005 2.04 7.789
The downward spiral! Zyprexa profits peaked and are dropping faster--and should continue to do so, especially since a lot of doctors are trying to get their patients off the drug.
...Took this from Lilly's financial statements and haven't had a chance to graph it yet (sorry!).
Posted by Brad Fidler at March 26, 2008 11:06 AM
I read that if all of the scripts for Zyprexa were tallied up, at a per script $ amount, Lilly would have had to fork over $200 million. Don't know how that stat was determined, but apparently the judge didn't see a cause to count each prescription, which in my opinion he must have forgotten those are PEOPLE taking those prescriptions. Oh well, another day another dollar for Lilly.
Posted by Stephany at March 28, 2008 12:12 PM