I'm loving all these whistleblower suits. Last year Cheryl Eckard blew the lid on GlaxoSmithKline's factory in Peurto Rico. A combination of poor quality pills, contamination and alleged black market selling of drugs from the plant saw Glaxo pay out a hefty fine. Eckard was earlier fired from her position after she brought it to the attention of her seniors that the Peurto Rican plant was in an appalling state.
Last week Allen Jones, another whistleblower, was vindicated for blowing the whistle on Johnson & Johnson. He learned that they were using underhand tactics to market their drug risperdal to children. A secret bank account was found by Jones that led him to the fraud. Like Eckard he too was fired from his position after he brought it to the attention of his peers.
Now we have a new whistleblower case set to hit the headlines.
Helen Ge was a former contractor at Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. She learned that Takeda have been playing down risks of three of their drugs, particularly when combined with other drugs. Again, she was fired from her position when she brought this to the attention of her seniors, alleges the lawsuit filed by Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman PC and Ashcroft Sullivan LLC
The complaint alleges that Takeda knowingly steered doctors away from prescribing cheaper generics of Uloric, Prevacid and Dexilant, and also failed to report adverse events to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“Takeda disregarded its duty to deal honestly with the government and with knowledge that its concealment and intentional misrepresentations would result in hundreds of millions, and perhaps billions of dollars in damage to government health care programs,” alleges the complaint.
What's startling about this particular whistleblower suit is that it appears that the elderly were at risk from Takeda's concealment, many elderly patients used Takeda's medication/s in combination with other drugs, drugs that Takeda allegedly knew could cause them serious problems and in some cases death.
This will be an interesting case to follow, particularly as Takeda are already under scrutiny for failing to warn patients taking their diabetes medication, Actos. A suit was filed in December last year that alleges Actos causes bladder cancer, the suit also makes claim to negligence, failure to warn, defective design and deceit by concealment.
More and more whistleblowers are coming forward it seems, which can only be good news for those of us that have been banging the drum loudly about the fraud that exists in Big Pharma.
Full complaint can be read HERE
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