$1.1B judgment is bad omen for J&J

Last week’s $1.1 billion Arkansas state court award against Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals unit was the biggest yet in a cascade of state court judgments over marketing of the antipsychotic Risperdal. But it’s not over yet: More attorneys general are now jumping into the fray, compounding J&J’s problems and keeping defense lawyers busy fighting state claims over alleged off-label marketing.

What’s behind the trend State consumer protection laws make it easier to win at trial, according to Daniel Miller, a former prosecutor who helped hammer out several big drug settlements between 2008 and 2010. Unlike state and federal False Claims Acts-the primary enforcement tool for the past quarter century-state consumer protection laws generally don’t require a finding that a company’s marketing sales calls or letters actually changed doctors’ prescription-writing behavior. Under state consumer laws, “it’s just a question of whether the marketing was misleading or deceptive,” said Miller, who joined Philadelphia plaintiffs firm Berger & Montague in 2010 to represent whistleblowers.