Eli Lilly Said to Play Down Risk of Top Pill - New York Times

Eli Lilly Said to Play Down Risk of Top Pill - New York Times: "Eli Lilly Said to Play Down Risk of Top Pill
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By ALEX BERENSON
Published: December 17, 2006
The drug maker Eli Lilly has engaged in a decade-long effort to play down the health risks of Zyprexa, its best-selling medication for schizophrenia, according to hundreds of internal Lilly documents and e-mail messages among top company managers.
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Darron Cummings/Associated Press
Zyprexa is Lilly’s top-selling drug, with sales of $4.2 billion last year.

Joshua Borough for The New York Times
James B. Gottstein, a lawyer who represents the mentally ill, said the documents about Zyprexa’s side effects raised public health issues. The documents, given to The Times by a lawyer representing mentally ill patients, show that Lilly executives kept important information from doctors about Zyprexa’s links to obesity and its tendency to raise blood sugar — both known risk factors for diabetes.
Lilly’s own published data, which it told its sales representatives to play down in conversations with doctors, has shown that 30 percent of patients taking Zyprexa gain 22 pounds or more after a year on the drug, and some patients have reported gaining 100 pounds or more. But Lilly was concerned that Zyprexa’s sales would be hurt if the company was more forthright about the fact that the drug might cause unmanageable weight gain or diabetes, according to the documents, which cover the period 1995 to 2004. "