We need context, sure 3 billion sounds like much but I'm willing bet that's single digit percent of the profit they made from the actual drugs. Paxil alone is 3.7 billion gross sales each year.

mauricecano: We need context, sure 3 billion sounds like much but I'm willing bet that's single digit percent of the profit they made from the actual drugs. Paxil alone is 3.7 billion gross sales each year.

Considering that Paxil came out in 1992 and Wellbutrin in 1985 (then pulled and reintroduced in 1989), I'm gonna guess they've made 10-20x the penalty ($30-60B).

20 years of probable good care (after all, Viagra's just a heart medication with cool side-effects), but outside the regulatory bounds. Pharma needs some better laws - not a loosening of the rules, but more focus on actually making and testing drugs, and less about marketing them.

The British pharmaceutical giant agrees to pay a record healthcare-fraud settlement

If it were an American company, they would have paid about $30,000

3 billion dollars, 44 states involved in the settlement, and California receives the highest payout of $46 million.

Somewhere there's a lot of extra money rolling around.

Chagrin: 3 billion dollars, 44 states involved in the settlement, and California receives the highest payout of $46 million.

Somewhere there's a lot of extra money rolling around.

Not really...

FTFA: "The British pharmaceutical giant agreed to pay a nearly $1-billion fine for illegally marketing and promoting a number of well-known products for uses not approved by federal drug regulators, the U.S. Justice Department said Monday. The company will pay an additional $2 billion to settle allegations in connection with its sales, marketing and pricing practices on the state and federal level."