Zyprexa Lawyers

Eli Lilly, which settled litigation over its Zyprexa drug for $700 million last year, faces thousands of new patient claims, three state lawsuits and government inquiries into marketing of the schizophrenia pill.

The new suits say, as the old ones did, that the Indianapolis-based company failed to warn that Zyprexa can cause diabetes and other illnesses. Patients also charge that Lilly improperly promoted Zyprexa, its top-selling drug, for uses not approved by regulators.

The litigation filed in the last year may cost the company more than the 2005 settlement, said Carl Tobias, a professor of product-liability law at the University of Richmond Law School in Virginia.

"More and more people who have been injured or think they've been injured come forward," Tobias said. "It takes on a life of its own."

Zyprexa, which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1996 to treat two mental health conditions, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, brought Lilly global sales of $4.2 billion in 2005, about 29 percent of its total. U.S. sales of $2.04 billion were down 16 percent from 2004.

Zyprexa is losing ground to rival products promoted as having fewer side effects, analysts said.

Lilly said last year it had reserves of $1.07 billion to cover the $700 million settlement and other legal costs related to Zyprexa. The settlement resolved 70 percent of the 8,000 cases that were pending, Tarra Ryker, a Lilly spokeswoman, said last week. The company, which said it disclosed Zyprexa's potential risks in 2000, told shareholders last year that 1,280 cases remained after the settlement.

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