Drug company Cephalon will pay CT $6 million fine

CT’s Attorney General announced yesterday that Cephalon, Inc. will pay $425 million nationally and $6.13 million to CT for illegally marketing three drugs causing serious complications in some patients including seizures, respiratory depression, addiction and death. The off-label marketing of the drugs for uses not approved by the FDA caused sales of the drugs to increase by as much as 1,000 percent. The agreement resulted from a four year investigation finding that Cephalon engaged a strategy of buying overlooked drugs with narrow approved uses and aggressively marketing them for non-approved uses to boost profits. The settlement subjects Cephalon to broad corporate integrity and financial transparency standards.
Ellen Andrews