George Savage: Annoy Obama, Lose Your Job?

Forest Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company best known for its anti-depressant products, is in a pickle.  Six months ago, the company settled allegations it improperly marketed its Lexapro and Celexa products by paying a $313 million fine to the feds. End of story, right?  Not so fast.  In a new development, the Obama administration is threatening to ban the company's CEO, Howard Solomon, from doing business with the government, essentially giving Forest's board of directors an ultimatum to fire him or watch the company collapse as it loses sales to, for example, Medicare beneficiaries. 

When I first read this, I was outraged at another job-destroying instinct of the Obama administration.  But then I came across a 2009 New York Times article detailing the company's Lexapro marketing plan and alleging that the many educational events sponsored by Forest were actually thinly disguised opportunities to put money in prescribers' pockets.  Paul Thacker, at the Project on Government Oversight, presents much of the evidence and then summarizes the case for dismissing Mr. Solomon:

So here's where things get a little tricky and a tad bit confusing. Despite the damaging evidence staring them in the face, Forest seems nonplussed by DOJ's action against their CEO.

“Numerous other major pharmaceutical companies have plead guilty to much more egregious offenses, and none of them has faced the exclusion of a senior executive who has not himself been convicted of a crime or pleaded guilty to a crime,” stated Herschel S. Weinstein, Vice President and General Counsel.

True. But we thought the “everybody else was doing it too, Mom,” defense went out in middle school. Guess we were wrong.

The government has been signaling for the last couple years that pharmaceutical executives should expect to become targeted for prosecution or debarment. Mr. Solomon is just the latest turn of the screw.

Help me out Richochet members.  Is this latest federal move a heavy-handed effort to intimidate legitimate businesses into bending the health care cost curve, or vigorous enforcement of the law to protect patients and taxpayers from unscrupulous drug marketers?