United States ex. rel. David Franklin vs. Parke-Davis

Pharmaceutical companies spend a lot of money promoting their drugs.  In 1996 an employee of Parke-Davis under the whistleblower laws filed a law suit against Parke-Davis claiming they were illegally promoting the drug Neurontin for off label uses.  The Drug Industry Document Archive has collected many of the documents related to this case.  From their site:

The Drug Industry Document Archive (DIDA) houses about 1000 documents drawn primarily from United States ex. rel.  David Franklin vs. Parke-Davis, Division of Warner-Lambert Company (now owned by Pfizer, Inc). The litigation concerned the marketing of Neurontin (gabapentin). (See About the Project for more details.) DIDA also contains documents on the marketing of Vioxx (rofecoxib) from the public records of the Minority Office of the Congressional Committee on Government Reform. The documents in this Archive focus primarily on the marketing of Neurontin (gabapentin) and Vioxx (rofecoxib), and include internal documents from Parke-Davis, Merck & Co. and correspondence with outside physicians and organizations, such as medical education and communications companies and advertising firms. Also included are regulatory and legal documents, court filings and depositions.

The archive can be searched here, browse the index here or document highlights can be seen here.

Warner-Lambert agreed to pay $430 million to resolve the case involving its subsidiary Parke-Davis.  Read the Department of Justice's release here.

Posted by Jon Lutz