After a plea to the U.S. Supreme Court fell on deaf ears, Pfizer Inc. has agreed to pay $325 million to settle a long-running lawsuit accusing the company of marketing its epilepsy drug Neurontin for unapproved uses. Lawyers for a proposed class of health benefit providers who paid for Neurontin filed a motion on Friday asking U.S. District Judge Patti Saris in Boston to approve the deal.
Pfizer has faced legal troubles over the way its Warner-Lambert unit marketed Neurontin for more than a decade. In 2004 Pfizer agreed to plead guilty to two felonies and pay $430 million in penalties to settle charges brought by the U.S. Department of Justice that it promoted Neurontin for unapproved, off-label uses. A wave of private lawsuits followed and were consolidated in multidistrict litigation in Boston federal court in 2005.
