Pfizher Case Study

Introduction I. Imagine that you are at your doctor’s office, a medical professional that you trust. A. You are prescribed a medication for your current condition and later find out you were prescribed a medication that was not FDA approved and not intended for the condition for which you’re being treated. B. How would that make you feel? II. Tonight I will discuss a case study in business ethics III. Pfizer’s drug fraud show how far businesses will go to make millions. A. The studies not only showed that the drug was ineffective, and potentially dangerous that it actually increased the frequency and severity of the epileptic seizures. B. It didn’t matter that the research had proven that Neurontin was ineffective and went forward. IV. Through my speech you will learn about Pfizer, who committed drug fraud and had to pay hefty fines. A. First, I will explain who Pfizer is and what the drug Neurontin does. B. Second, I will explain what they have done. C. Finally, I will discuss the outcome for Pfizer.
Body
I. I will explain who Pfizer is and what the drug Neurontin does. A. Pfizer is a pharmaceutical company that is dedicated to discovering and developing new and better ways to prevent and treat diseases and improve health and well-being for people around the world. B. According to the Federal food & Drug Administration in December 1993 it was approved as a supplemental anti-seizure medication for epilepsy patients. 1. Neurontin is used to treat seizures, nerve pain caused by herpes virus or shingles. II. Next, I will explain what they have done. A. They developed an illegal marketing strategy for off-label uses of Neurontin after deciding it would be time consuming and costly to win FDA approval for those uses. 1. They hired and trained medical liaison to act as a surrogate Neurontin sales force. 2. Encouraged medical liaisons to falsely represent themselves as a medical

Cited: Farrell, Greg. "Pfizers settles fraud case for $430M." USA Today 14 May 2004. McLeod, Douglas. Lawsuits mount over marketing of epilepsy drug. 14 June 2004. Murphree, Roger. "Neurontin for Everything." The American Chiroprctor (2009).