Risperdal was a drug that was aggressively promoted and sold by Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for unapproved uses, mostly targeting providers who treated elderly dementia patients and nursing home providers. In their promotions they stated the drug could be used for controlling aggression and anxiety in these elderly dementia patients and even used on children with behavioral disturbances. In actuality, the drug had only been approved by the FDA for use to treat schizophrenia. Where were the lawyers during this?
Due to such outrageous off-label marketing and targeted sales from 1999 - 2005 hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of uncovered claims arose. Additionally, a criminal investigation ensued after warnings had been ignored by the both Johnson & Johnson and Janssen.
A settlement agreement was reached on Monday in regards to this case, one of the largest health care fraud cases in U.S. History. Johnson & Johnson will have to pay $2.2 billion to end the civil and criminal investigations. Janssen's criminal defense lawyer is having him plead guilty to a single misdemeanor for the wrongful promotion of Rispersdal. Johnson & Johnson states that the settlement of the civil allegations is NOT an admission of any wrongdoing and they still deny all of the governments allegations against them.