According to today’s press release at PR Newswire, AstraZeneca must pay the federal government $520 million in civil fines to settle charges of off-label marketing of the antipsychotic drug Seroquel.
The settlement is the largest pharmaceutical civil settlement, and among the top five civil and criminal drug company settlements in U.S. history.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Seroquel only for schizophrenia and specific types of bipolar mania. AstraZeneca was charged with promoting Seroquel to physicians for “off-label” use in children and the elderly.
The first complaint was filed in 2004 on behalf of a whistleblower by qui tam whistleblower, class action, and mass tort attorney Stephen A. Sheller, Esq. of Philadelphia’s Sheller, P.C.
The Sheller firm has represented whistleblowers in cases that have resulted in $4.2 billion in settlements for the U.S. government in just the last year and a half.
Sheller, P.C. is among the preeminent plaintiff and qui tam whistleblower law firms in the United States. Founded in 1977, Sheller, P.C. attorneys have litigated groundbreaking cases dealing with everything from tobacco company fraud and consumer electronics fraud to racial discrimination and birth defects.
