Healthy Skepticism Library item: 16235

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Donnelly JM
J&J whistleblower case back in Mass. court
Boston Business Journal 2009 Aug 13
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2009/08/10/daily45.html

Full text:

The U.S. District Court in Boston will re-hear a so-called whistlebower case against Johnson & Johnson that alleges the health care and pharmaceutical giant committed medicare fraud by illegally marketing one of its drugs.

A federal appeals court sent the case back to the district court, reversing a 2008 decision that found that the two plaintiffs in the case, former sales representatives Mark Duxbury and Dean McClellan, did not qualify as whistleblowers and did not provide enough specificity in their claims.

The suit alleges that Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), through its Ortho Biotech Products subsidiary, illegally marketed its anti-anemia drug Procrit and engaged in a scheme to provide kickbacks to providers who prescribed and over-utilized the drug in ways it was not approved for at the time.

The men’s attorney, Jan Schlichtmann – the lawyer in the Woburn water contamination suit that was the subject of the book and movie, “A Civil Action” – said the suit could be the largest medicare fraud case in history, based on sales figures for the drug.