Highly respected Judge Jack B. Weinstein of the United States Federal District Court in Brooklyn decided on Friday to unseal confidential materials about Eli Lillys top-selling antipsychotic drug Zyprexa.
Judge Weinstein’s ruling was part of an order that gave class-action status to a case brought by insurance companies, pension funds and unions that allege Lilly owes them billions of dollars they spent on the drug. They allege that Lilly hid the side effects of the drug and marketed it for unapproved uses.
The Judge ordered that the documents be made public, against the desires of Lilly, citing “the health of hundreds of thousands of people” and “fundamental questions” about the way drugs are approved for new uses. Judge Weinstein found that “Lilly’s legitimate interest in confidentiality does not outweigh the public interest in disclosure at this stage.”
The documents were produced by Lilly in response to a related lawsuit filed by patients who said that Zyprexa had caused excessive weight gain and diabetes The papers were placed under a protective court order soon after the suit was filed in 2004.
The issue of confidential information arose in 2006, when some of the Zyprexa papers were provided to a reporter for The New York Times. In articles published by the newspaper, it was disclosed that the documents revealed that Lilly executives had kept information from doctors about Zyprexa’s links to obesity and high blood sugar.
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