Johnson & Johnson Thursday agreed to pay a $158 million settlement to end a trial over Texas officials’ charges that the pharmaceutical maker improperly marketed its antipsychotic drug Risperdal.
In the Johnson & Johnson case, officials in the Lonestar State back in 2004 alleged that the drugmaker’s Janssen unit defrauded Texas’s Medicaid program by marketing Risperdal for unapproved uses. A trial had been in progress for four weeks before the settlement, according to Bloombeg News.
The Food and Drug Administration had approved Risperdal for uses as treatment of schizophrenia. But Janssen also began promoting the drug for other treatments, including psychiatric problems in children and adolescents, Bloomberg reported.
The drug maker in 2004 mounted a campaign to “flood clinics” with Risperdal and increase its usage for children, according to Bloomberg. The strategy was to compete against drugs such as AstraZeneca’s Seroquel.
Although the $158 million seems like a large sum, Texas had been seeking $579 miillion, according to Bloomberg. Sources also told Bloomberg that about a month ago Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay a $1 billion settlement to several states and the U.S. government in order to put an end to a probe of fraudulent Risperdal marketing.
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