Pfizer agrees to pay $2.3 billion to settle illegal marketing case

Pfizer Inc., the world's biggest drug maker by sales, has agreed yesterday to pay a record $2.3 billion to settle allegations that it has illegally promoted 13 medicines, including now-withdrawn Bextra pain medicine.

It would be the largest settlement to date for improper marketing of prescription drugs, topping the $1.42 billion Eli Lilly and Co agreed to pay earlier this year for off-label sales of its Zyprexa schizophrenia drug.

The case was investigated and settled by a group that included Washington state attorneys general, US Attorneys' offices in Boston and Philadelphia and the US Department of Justice.

The settlement stems from a four-year old charge that Pfizer sent doctors on all-expense-paid trips to resorts, gave out free massages, and paid kickbacks to doctors, all to get them to prescribe its drugs for off-label uses.

Although it is legal for physicians to write such prescriptions, and a common practice, companies are barred from actually promoting their drugs for purposes other than those that have won Food & Drug Administration approval.

The fines were slapped after the company was deemed a repeat offender. The drugs involved in the settlement are Bextra, Geodon, Lyrica, Zyvox, Aricept, Celebrex, Lipitor, Norvasc, Relpax, Viagra, Zithromax, Zoloft and Zyrtec.