Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2791

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

Berenson A.
Pfizer Fires a Vice President Who Criticized the Company' s Sales Practices
New York Times 2005 Dec 2
http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?ppds=bylL&v1=ALEX%20BERENSON&fdq=19960101&td=sysdate&sort=newest&ac=ALEX%20BERENSON&inline=nyt-per

Keywords:
Rost Pharmacia Pfizer whistle-blower genotropin

Notes:

Ralph Faggotter’s Comments:

It is not unusual for pharmaceutical companies to attempt to broaden the market for their drugs by promoting them for indications for which the drugs have not been approved.

Furthermore, it is not unheard of for doctors to be offered inducements to prescribe certain drugs.

This story includes both these ingredients mixed in amongst its dramatic elements.

Full text:

New York Times December 2, 2005

Pfizer Fires a Vice President Who Criticized the Company’s Sales Practices

By ALEX BERENSON

Pfizer has parted ways with Peter Rost, its not-so-favorite whistle-blower.

The company, the world’s largest drug maker, said yesterday that it had fired Mr. Rost, a vice president for corporate marketing who engaged in a public campaign against Pfizer over drug prices for the last year.

His dismissal came after a federal judge in Boston unsealed a lawsuit Mr. Rost filed in June 2003 against Pfizer, asserting that Pharmacia, a drug maker Pfizer bought in April 2003, illegally promoted the sale of human growth hormone for unauthorized uses.

Mr. Rost contends that Pharmacia offered doctors illegal inducements to use genotropin, its growth hormone, as an anti-aging drug for adults. The Food and Drug Administration has not approved human growth hormone for that purpose, and drug makers are not supposed to promote their products for purposes that have not received approval.

The fact that the suit was unsealed is actually a positive development for Pfizer, because it indicates that the government has chosen not to participate in the suit alongside Mr. Rost. Whistle-blower lawsuits typically remain secret when the government participates.

A spokesman for Pfizer, Paul Fitzhenry, said, “The government’s action today indicates that after two and a half years of careful evaluation, the government sees no merit in intervening in Peter Rost’s action.”

A separate federal investigation into the way Pharmacia marketed genotropin is continuing, Mr. Fitzhenry said.

He declared that Mr. Rost’s lawsuit was without merit because Pfizer had told the F.D.A. about irregularities in the way Pharmacia promoted genotropin several weeks before Mr. Rost separately informed officials.

“Peter Rost filed his whistle-blower lawsuit after Pfizer brought the matter to the government,” Mr. Fitzhenry said. “His actions in this regard were clearly opportunistic.”

Under the law, whistle-blowers can receive part of the money the government recovers in a lawsuit that is begun as a result of information they have provided. In some cases, whistle-blowers have been awarded tens of millions of dollars.

Mr. Fitzhenry also remarked that Mr. Rost had been the vice president in charge of marketing genotropin at Pfizer, so that he was essentially blowing the whistle on his own conduct.

Mr. Rost said yesterday that he believed he had filed his suit before Pfizer disclosed any information to the government. He brought the suit, he said, because Pfizer and Pharmacia repeatedly rejected his efforts to tell the F.D.A. about the way genotropin was marketed.

“I had spent from October 2002 trying to get Pfizer and Pharmacia to take action,” he added, “and finally took my own action.”

A spokeswoman for the United States attorney’s office in Boston said she had no comment on Mr. Rost’s lawsuit and could not confirm or deny the existence of a separate investigation.

Pfizer’s action was the latest chapter in a long and public skirmish with Mr. Rost, who has drawn a salary from Pfizer since it bought Pharmacia in 2003 despite, by his own account, doing essentially no work. Last year, he made about $600,000 in salary, bonus and other compensation.

Since August 2004, Mr. Rost has repeatedly criticized Pfizer for its efforts to block Americans from saving money by importing prescription drugs from other countries. In June, after Mr. Rost appeared on “60 Minutes” to talk about drug pricing, he found that his corporate cellphone and e-mail accounts had been turned off. At the time, Pfizer said it had not deliberately disconnected his service.

Pfizer said yesterday that lawyers for Mr. Rost had asked the company in July 2004 for a severance package of $12.5 million. His public criticism began only after the company rejected the severance package, Mr. Fitzhenry said.

Pfizer did not disclose the size of its severance package to Mr. Rost but said it had offered him a package in line with other employees of Pharmacia forced out after the merger.

Mr. Rost said his lawyers had proposed the severance package only in response to Pfizer’s request that they specify something, adding, “I have never asked for any money” to drop the suit.