Part of a 33-state settlement over fraud.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott Wednesday announced that Texas and 32 other states have reached a $42.9 million settlement agreement with drug manufacturer Pfizer Inc. The agreement resolves a multistate fraud investigation into Pfizer’s unlawful promotion of two antibiotic drugs, Zyvox and Lyrica.
Under the agreement, which will be formally approved as a consent judgment by a state district court, the State of Texas will receive $3.9 million.
In 2007, the states began investigating Pfizer for unlawfully marketing and promoting Zyvox. According to state investigators, Pfizer’s sales and marketing teams improperly claimed that Zyvox was superior to generic equivalent antibiotic drug vancomycin.
The multi-state investigation also discovered that Pfizer unlawfully promoted Lyrica for “off-label” uses, which are uses not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The investigation found evidence that Pfizer marketed Lyrica as a treatment for types of neuropathic pain other than those indicated and approved by the FDA.
