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Brian Kenney and Tavy Deming, attorneys for the two salesmen, said top management did nothing to stop the illegal practices, pressured Thorpe to resign and later fired Hamrick for allegedly not cooperating with the company's investigation of one kickback allegation. According to Deming, Hamrick reported that at a 2000 regional meeting of sales representatives in Las Vegas, they were directed to promote Wellbutrin as the drug that makes patients happy, skinny and sexually turned on, part of a catchy national slogan repeated to doctors. Thorpe said in a statement Monday that he was penalized after he reported kickbacks being paid to doctors and sales reps encouraging doctors to promote drugs for unapproved uses, including using Paxil and Wellbutrin in children. "In the end, I was told that my concerns were not valid. I was put on leave" after a 24-year career, Thorpe wrote. He added that he was told to either "take a severance package or go back to work for the same people, doing the same things I had reported to management." Thorpe and Hamrick, plus two other sales rep whistleblowers who joined the case shortly after them, will receive an as-yet undecided portion of the $3 billion. The Glaxo case underscores how aggressive the Justice Department has become in pursuing such conduct. In a May settlement, Abbott Laboratories pleaded guilty and agreed to pay the government a $700 million criminal fine and forfeiture for promoting Depakote, approved for bipolar disorder and epilepsy, for use in patients with dementia and autism. That was on top of civil settlements with numerous states and the federal government totaling $800 million. Prior to the Glaxo settlement, the record-setting case involved Pfizer Inc., the world's biggest drugmaker. It paid the government $2.3 billion in 2009 in criminal and civil fines for improperly marketing 13 different drugs, including erectile-dysfunction drug Viagra and cholesterol fighter Lipitor, the top-selling drug in the world for years. Pfizer was accused of encouraging doctors to prescribe its drugs with free golf, massages and junkets to posh resorts. "For far too long, we have heard that the pharmaceutical industry views these settlements merely as the cost of doing business," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Stuart F. Delery, head of Justice's civil division. "Today's resolution seeks not only to punish wrongdoing and recover taxpayer dollars, but to ensure GSK's future compliance with the law."
[Associated
Press;
Associated Press writer Jesse J. Holland in Washington contributed to this story.
Linda A. Johnson can be followed at http://twitter.com/LindaJ_onPharma.
Copyright 2012 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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