In the latest twist in litigation over the marketing of antipsychotic Zyprexa, a federal judge gave class-action status to a case brought against Eli Lilly by insurers and decided to make public loads of confidential company documents.
Insurers, pension funds and unions seek compensation from Lilly, alleging they overspent on the drug because Lilly concealed Zyprexa�s tendency to cause weight gain and diabetes and marketed the drug for unapproved uses.
�Lilly?s legitimate interest in confidentiality does not outweigh the public interest in disclosure at this stage,? Judge Jack B. Weinstein wrote, according to the New York Times. A Lilly spokeswoman said the company wouldn�t appeal the decision to release the documents but would appeal the certification of the class action.
In some ways the decision to release documents is moot. Two years ago Times reporter Alex Berenson wrote about Lilly�s marketing of Zyprexa based on the documents he�d received with the help of a lawyer in Alaska and an expert witness in the case. A trove of the documents found their way onto the Internet.
The publication of sealed information led Judge Weinstein to rebuke Berenson and the others last year for conspiring to illegally release the documents. On Friday, Weinstein said again that the documents had been ?obtained illegally? by the Times but also cited ?this country?s general policy of accessibility of court records,? the Times wrote.
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