Pfizer Board Liable for Marketing Miscues, Suit Says
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Pfizer Inc. directors should be held liable for the drugmaker’s repeated violations of federal laws governing drug-marketing practices that resulted in the company having to pay a $2.3 billion settlement, a union pension fund said in a lawsuit.
New York-based Pfizer’s board turned a blind eye to criminal guilty pleas the company entered over marketing practices for medicines such its Bextra pain-killing drug and its Neurontin epilepsy pill, the Bricklayers Local 8 & Plasters Local 233 Pension Fund, a Pfizer shareholder, said in the suit. Directors’ inaction has hurt the value of investors’ stakes in the company, the fund’s lawyers contend.