The United States Supreme Court has issued a decision which strikes down a Vermont law banning the practice of data mining information collected by pharmacies including the name of the prescribing physician drug dosage and quantity of the medication and the patients age and gender, which in turn is sold to pharmaceutical companies. Data-mining...

Google disclosed this week that it had reserved $500 million to resolve a U.S Justice Department investigation into its ads from companies selling unlicensed pharmaceuticals. Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have altered their policies in order to filter out ads that hawk prescription meds many from Canadian companies but where the drugs are manufactured in...

Johnson & Johnson has segregated moneys for a possible settlement with the U.S. government alleging violations of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act and the False Claims Act. J&J apparently marketed Risperdal for off label, non approved uses. Three former salespeople filed a whistleblower suit which said that J&J promoted Risperdal for conditions beyond...

A lawsuit filed against Johnson & Johnson by a whistleblower and the U.S. Department of Justice, alleging the company paid kickbacks to influence sales of its drugs will continue, says Federal Judge Richard Stearns. The company is alleged to have paid its kickbacks to Omnicare Inc. the largest U.S, pharmacy for nursing home patients,...

A Sequenom Inc. patent agent and his brother have pleaded guilty to conspiring to trade stock options of the maker of a genetic analysis product using inside information says the Department of Justice. According to court documents, the patent agent Aaron Scalia of San Diego and his brother Stephen of Baltimore used the private...

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has filed a strident Memo of Law in support of a $250 million fine against Warrick Pharmaceuticals/Schering Plough for pricing fraud on Proventil. A federal jury found against the company recently. Part of the claim was filed under The Massachusetts False Claims Act for claims caused to be presented to...

Depuy Orthopaedics Inc., a division of Johnson & Johnson recalled its metal on metal (MoM) Articular Surface Replacement (ASR) in August of this year due to a greater than 12 percent failure rate during the first five years of implantation. DePuy estimates that 93,000 ASR hips have been implanted and it recommends that ASR...

The state of Oregon is suing Johnson & Johnson for hiring people to buy Motrin pain releiver off the shelves so that it would not have to issue a formal recall or tell consumers there was a problem with the drug. Oregon's Attorney General John Kroger says that the phantom recall placed the public...