Eli Lilly set to plead guilty, pay $1.42b in fines

Eli Lilly & Co will plead guilty to a criminal charge of promoting its antipsychotic drug Zyprexa for unapproved uses, pay $1.42 billion in fines and submit to US monitoring against future lawbreaking.

Lilly "reached a resolution" of federal and state investigations into how it marketed the drug and will plead guilty in US District Court in Philadelphia in the next few weeks, the Indianapolis-based drugmaker said yesterday in a statement. Lilly admits it promoted Zyprexa in elderly people to treat dementia, a use not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, between September 1999 and March 2001, a criminal violation of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, the company said.

The settlement is a record in a false-claims case, said Patrick Burns of Taxpayers Against Fraud in Washington, which tracks such litigation. The agreement includes a $615 million fine for the criminal charge and payments of $800 million to end civil probes by the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and Medicaid fraud units in more than 30 states, Lilly said.