J&J, Amgen Settle Lawsuit Over ESAs

With the ESA franchise becoming less valuable, with FDA about to further tighten the label, J&J and Amgen settled an antitrust lawsuit over bundling.

Bundling has been a spectacularly successful scheme in promotion of cancer drugs. It made oncologists strive to meet sales targets to qualify for discounts that in some cases were massive. The original suit filed by J&J in 2005 describes it in extraordinary detail.

Until this year, Amgen set dollar targets for Aranesp sales. This was an incentive for doctors to push the drug's dose. Starting this year, the company's supply contract with practices measure targets in percentage points. This pushes the market share of Aranesp versus J&J's Procrit.

Is the bundling story over? Probably not. The New York Attorney General's office has been investigating marketing on the part of both Amgen and J&J. Congressional investigators, too, are amassing boxes of documents.

Now all eyes are on FDA. The agency was widely expected to have released the label earlier this week. As of this writing, it hasn't.

Click on The Cancer Letter Archive at left to download the July 18, 2008, issue (subscription required).
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tags: FDA