Documents Reveal Lilly’s Efforts To Market Zyprexa
An article published in today’s New York Times reveals how Eli Lilly and Company worked with its sales force to market its anti-psychotic Zyprexa. The Times suggests that the documents show how Lilly convinced doctors to prescribe Zyprexa for an off-label indication (dementia). The medication is approved for the treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar.
Lilly denies that it asked its sales force to market Zyprexa for unapproved uses. According to the Times, a Lilly spokesperson said the company: “never promoted Zyprexa for off-label uses and that it always showed the marketing materials used by its sales representatives to the Food and Drug Administration as required by law.â€
Click here to read the Times’ article.
December 28th, 2006 at 7:20 am
Zyprexa zenith to zonked
On November 28, 2001, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a letter written by Dr. Elizabeth Koller, an FDA medical officer, Dr. P. Murali Doraiswamy, a Duke University psychiatrist warning that according to FDA’s MedWatch data, patients taking olanzapine (Zyprexa) were 10 times more likely to become diabetic than the general population. [JAMA Vol. 286 No. 20.]
The black box warning was put up too late mates!
At a glance,zyprexa was promoted ‘off label’ to uses that weren’t FDA approved.This opens up a can of worms for patients like myself who took it for PTSD for which it was ineffective and moreover gave me diabetes.
It was Eli Lilly that manufactured,promoted and exaggerated the efficacy of it’s defective zyprexa product.
Blaming my doctors or myself is like blaming the Supermarket vedor for a tainted brand name food product produced by a longtime trusted supplier.
If i bought a can of General Mills Green Giant string beans that had botulism I would blame the Jolly Green Giant wouldn’t you?
True,leaked documents don’t convey the ‘whole picture’ but what is compelling is that zyprexa is the 7th some say 5th largest drug sell in the world and Eli Lilly’s #1 drug sale by their own admission.
This is for a drug that won’t get you “high” cost $2.50 a pill and only indicated for less than 1% of the population.
Hello! Somebody in Lilly land is pushing zyprexa hard-Daniel Haszard