Seroquel News Archive

AstraZeneca Sharpens Focus on Ethics
-Bloomberg
12/23/2009 - U.S. government fines have made big drug makers "more sensitive than we've ever been" about preventing illegal promotion of their drugs, the chief executive of AstraZeneca PLC said in an interview. AstraZeneca in September reached a preliminary agreement to pay $520 million to settle a U.S. investigation into its marketing of the schizophrenia drug Seroquel, including allegations that the company promoted the drug for uses for which it isn't approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This practice, called "off-label marketing," is illegal. More>>>

Antipsychotic Drugs Can Cause Rapid Weight Gain in Kids
-FNA
11/04/2009 - Results of a new study suggested that prescription of antipsychotic drugs for children could be a factor in their rapid weight gain and may raise the risk for diabetes and heart disease. More>>>

Astra sets aside $520M for Seroquel case
- Philadelphia Inquirer
11/01/2009 - Drugmaker AstraZeneca P.L.C. said yesterday that it had set aside $520 million as part of a tentative agreement to resolve an investigation by federal prosecutors in Philadelphia into the company's marketing practices. More>>>

AstraZeneca Promoted Seroquel as ‘Weight Neutral’
-Bloomberg
10/08/2009 - AstraZeneca Plc advised its sales force to promote the antipsychotic drug Seroquel as “weight neutral” four years after company research found “clinically significant” weight gains in users, internal documents show. More>>>

AstraZeneca Denied Drug’s Diabetes Link Years After Warning
-Bloomberg
09/23/2009 - An AstraZeneca Plc saleswoman told a U.S. doctor the antipsychotic Seroquel didn’t cause diabetes almost four years after the company warned Japanese physicians about the drug’s links to the disease, internal documents show. More>>>

AstraZeneca faces lawsuits over Seroquel
-EmaxHealth
08/27/2009 - AstraZeneca sales over $5 billion a year worldwide from its drug Seroquel alone. Recently it has come to the attention of the public of the astronomical lawsuit defense costs as a result of failing to adequately warn about the serious side effects the drug carries. More>>>

AstraZeneca Q2: $593M Seroquel Legal Bill Taps Out Insurance; Income Charges Expected
-BNET Pharma
07/30/2009 - AstraZeneca said its Seroquel litigation costs have exceeded $593 million, and that it has tapped out the extent of its liability insurance. With no more insurance available to cover its bills, the company said it will take charges on its income statement in upcoming quarters. More>>>

Antipsychotics pose high risks for older diabetics:
Patients were up to 15 times more likely to need hospital treatment for elevated blood sugar if new to the medications
-GlobeLife
07/28/2009 - Diabetic seniors on newly prescribed antipsychotic medications have up to 15 times the risk of being hospitalized for dangerously high blood-sugar levels as diabetics not taking the powerful drugs, new Canadian research shows. More>>>

Older schizophrenia drug safer than more widely prescribed ones, study says
-Los Angeles Times
07/14/2009 - Schizophrenics taking the first -- and cheapest -- of a new generation of antipsychotic medications, clozapine, were less likely to suffer premature death than patients taking the newer, costlier and more widely prescribed antipsychotic drugs Seroquel, Risperdal and Zyprexa, says a study published in the British medical journal Lancet. More>>>

Drugging Our Children to Death
-HealthNewsDigest
07/01/2009 - In Massachusetts, a four-year-old girl named Rebecca became the center of a murder investigation after being found dead from an overdose of a dangerous combination of drugs. Both her parents and psychiatrist are facing criminal prosecution and will stand trial later this year. More>>>

AstraZeneca Can’t Stop Testimony by Seroquel Expert Witness
-Bloomberg
06/19/2009 - AstraZeneca Plc can’t block testimony by a medical expert that its antipsychotic Seroquel can cause weight gain and diabetes, a federal judge ruled. More>>>

Seroquel, Zyprexa and Geodon for Kids?
-Adelphi, MD
06/15/2009 - Even as a US District Court prepares 6,000 Seroquel lawsuits for trial, Eli Lilly pays $1.42 billion for illegal Zyrexa marketing and 30 states sue over heisted Medicaid funds for atypical antipsychotics, an FDA advisory panel has recommended approval of Seroquel, Zyrexa and Geodon for children. More>>>

FDA panel to decide on antipsychotics for use in children
-PharmaTimes
06/10/2009 - A US Food and Drug Administration advisory committee will vote later today on whether three blockbuster antipsychotics should be allowed to market them to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in paediatric and adolescent populations. More>>>

FDA Committee to Rule on Psych Meds for Youths
-YouthToday
06/05/2009 - The Food and Drug Administration's Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee will vote next week on whether to allow three psychotropic medications to be marketed as effective and acceptably safe for youths with certain conditions. More>>>

AstraZeneca Told Sales Reps to Lie About Seroquel-Diabetes Link
-NaturalNews
06/02/2009 - Drug giant AstraZeneca instructed its sales representatives to tell doctors that there was no link between its antipsychotic drug Seroquel and an increased risk of diabetes, even though studies conducted by the company had already shown otherwise, according to documents uncovered as part of a lawsuit. More>>>

Astrazeneca gets mixed response to Seroquel
-FinancialTimes
04/10/2009 - AstraZeneca’s hopes of extending the uses of its blockbuster drug Seroquel in the US have met with a mixed response from a key panel of medical experts. More>>>

FDA Panel Ambivalent on Expanded Seroquel Indications
-MedPageToday
04/08/2009 - An FDA advisory committee today was reluctant to recommend approval of more indications for the antipsychotic drug quetiapine (Seroquel), with studies showing substantial metabolic and cardiovascular risks. More>>>

Conflicts for FDA committee set to weigh risks of Seroquel
-Philadelphia Inquirer 
04/04/2009 - AstraZeneca P.L.C. paid Florida child psychiatrist Jorge Armenteros to talk to other doctors about prescribing Seroquel, the company's powerful antipsychotic. More>>>

US sees death concern in schizophrenia drugs
-Reuters
04/03/2009 - U.S. regulators are concerned about a potential risk of sudden death with schizophrenia drugs from AstraZeneca Plc and H Lundbeck A/S, documents released on Friday showed. More>>>

Seroquel Victim Wants More AstraZeneca Documents Unsealed
-NewsInferno
03/13/2009 - A plaintiff in a Seroquel lawsuit is trying to convince a judge to unseal more AstraZeneca documents before a Food & Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel meets next month to consider expanding the use of an extended-release version of the drug. More>>>

New documents question data on Seroquel, diabetes
-PhiladelphiaInquirer
03/08/2009 - Shortly after new antipsychotic drugs came on the market in the late 1990s, the Food and Drug Administration started to worry that they might trigger diabetes in some patients. More>>>

Don't let drugmaker hide records
-St.Petersburg Times
03/04/2009- Beyond arbitrating private disputes, the courts play a key role in protecting the public interest. A federal magistrate in Orlando is deciding whether to open records of the drug company AstraZeneca or allow the maker of the blockbuster drug Seroquel to hide potentially embarrassing information. More>>>

Lawyers: AstraZeneca Failed to Inform Patients on Seroquel Risks
-eFluxMedia
03/03/2009- AstraZeneca Plc failed to make public results of at least three clinical trials of its antipsychotic drug Seroquel, according to an e-mail sent by one of the company’s officials in December 1999. The e-mail was unsealed Thursday under an agreement between the company and lawyers for patients. More>>>

AstraZeneca Warned Japanese Doctors of Diabetes Link (Update3)
-Bloomberg
03/02/2009- AstraZeneca Plc pushed salespeople to tell U.S. doctors its antipsychotic drug Seroquel didn’t cause diabetes more than two years after warning physicians in Japan of possible links to the disease, internal documents show. More>>>

Seroquel Studies Cherry Picked, Company Docs Show
-InjuryBoard
02/28/2009- Often litigation yields secrets a company would rather keep quiet. That is what’s happened in litigation over the antipsychotic drug, Seroquel, made by AstraZeneca Plc. Bloomberg News filed a motion to unseal records in the case and AstraZeneca has agreed to release more than 100 files. More>>>

AstraZeneca Papers Raise Seroquel Issues
-WSJ
02/27/2009- ORLANDO, Fla. -- AstraZeneca PLC instructed its U.S. sales representatives to tell doctors that its powerful psychiatric drug, Seroquel, didn't cause diabetes even though a company physician had at one point stated years earlier that such a link was probable in some individuals, documents unsealed in a federal court case here show. More>>>

Ruling near on privacy issues in Seroquel case
- Philadelphia Inquirer
02/26/2009- Does the world have the right to know about negative studies on AstraZeneca's potent antipsychotic drug Seroquel? Or whether company representatives promoted the drug for unapproved uses? And what about details of sexual relationships between Wayne Macfadden, AstraZeneca's former U.S. medical director for Seroquel, and two women who researched and wrote papers supporting the drug's safety and efficacy? More>>>

Seroquel Case: Must AstraZeneca Tell All?
-BusinessWeek
02/25/2009- In more lawsuits, companies are being forced to reveal internal information during the pretrial discovery phase that otherwise would be kept private A showdown is looming in a Florida courtroom over an issue that has long bedeviled business: How much internal information can a company be forced to make public simply because it has become a defendant in a lawsuit? More>>>

Antipsychotics up cardiac death risk
-PressTV
01/19/2009- Taking antipsychotic drugs for conditions they have not been approved for increases the risk of death from cardiovascular diseases. Antipsychotic drugs such as Risperdal, Zyprexa and Seroquel are usually prescribed for serious mental conditions like schizophrenia; some physicians, however, recommend these drugs for treating conditions such as Alzheimer's and attention deficit disorders. More>>>

Are You Bipolar? Unethical Drug Company Hopes So
-NewsBlaze
01/13/2009- If 100 million Americans have high cholesterol and only 8 million have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, how can AstraZeneca's Seroquel, not cholesterol pill Crestor, be its second best selling pill? More>>>

Calmer child comes with a price: side effects
-Poughkeepsie Journal
12/21/2008- When 11-year-old William, a City of Poughkeepsie youth, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he was a skinny, 65-pound 7-year-old who had been physically aggressive to his mother and was, in her words, "tearing the house apart." More>>>

Seroquel Problems Mount for AstraZeneca as First Trial Approaches
-AboutLawsuits
12/09/2008- The first of several thousand lawsuits filed by Seroquel users who claim that AstraZeneca failed to warn about serious side effects of Seroquel, is scheduled for trial to begin in February 2009, and the problems for the drug maker continue to increase. More>>>

FDA Raps AstraZeneca For Off Label Seroquel Promotion
-MM&M
12/08/2008- The FDA's DDMAC issued a warning letter to AstraZeneca asserting that a company sales rep recommended or suggested to a healthcare professional an off-label use for Seroquel and Seroquel XR. More>>>

AstraZeneca's Seroquel on FDA warning list
-Delaware Online
09/06/2008- AstraZeneca's antipsychotic drug Seroquel is one of 20 medications being investigated for potential safety problems, federal regulators said Friday. More>>>

Seroquel Litigation: 8,787 Lawsuits Filed against AstraZeneca
-AboutLawsuits.com
09/05/2008- According to court documents filed last week, AstraZeneca currently faces 8,787 Seroquel lawsuits that have been filed in federal and state courts, which allege that their antipsychotic medication led to personal injuries, such as pancreatitis and diabetes. More>>>

Several lawsuits target prescription drug Seroquel
-Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
08/29/2008- Several people filed federal lawsuits against AstraZeneca here yesterday, claiming that the anti-psychotic drug Seroquel was marketed improperly and can lead to diabetes. More>>>

Health warnings failed to curb use of antipsychotic drugs in seniors:
-CBSnews.ca
08/26/2008- Three warnings from Health Canada on the risk of death and stroke among seniors taking antipsychotic drugs failed to reduce the prescription rates of those drugs, according to researchers who suggest health warnings are ineffective at protecting patients. More>>>

Antipsychotics Do More Harm than Good In Dementia Patients
-NewsInferno
06/25/2008- Antipsychotic drugs use to reduce symptoms of agitation, aggression, and violence in dementia patients is on the rise, as can be seen in soaring sales of antipsychotics like Risperdal, Seroquel, and Zyprexa. More>>>  

FDA requests boxed warnings on “conventional” antipsychotics
-Foodconsumer.org
06/22/2008- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced its decision to have boxed warnings added on the label of "conventional" antipsychotic drugs to indicate that increased risk of death has been associated with the off-label use of these medications to treat behavioral problems in older people with dementia. More>>>

Sen. Grassley Knocks Psychiatrist’s Funding from AstraZeneca
-Wall Street Journal

04/09/2008 - A University of Cincinnati psychiatrist who was the lead author of a 2002 study that concluded kids did well on AstraZeneca’s antipsychotic Seroquel has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the company since then, according to Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). More>>>

AstraZeneca Submits sNDA for SEROQUEL XR(TM) for the Treatment of Major Depressive Disorder
-CNN
02/29/2008 - AstraZeneca today announced the submission of a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for once- daily SEROQUEL XR(TM) (quetiapine fumarate) Extended-Release Tablets to seek approval for the treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD) as monotherapy, adjunct therapy, and maintenance therapy in adult patients. More>>>

If you or a loved one have experienced any of the serious Seroquel side effects such as hyperglycemia or diabetes during or after Seroquel treatment, you may be entitled to compensation. Contact the Seroquel attorneys of Ennis & Ennis today for a free confidential case evaluation. Our on staff nurse and lawyers are standing by to answer any questions you may have regarding Seroquel side effects, a possible Seroquel class action lawsuit, or any other type of Seroquel litigation.