Four former employees of drugmaker Schering-Plough Corp.’s Argentinian subsidiary can sue over allegations they were fired for complaining about illegal marketing practices, including bribing doctors to boost drug sales, a New Jersey court ruled Friday.

The ruling by a three-judge panel of the Appellate Division means the employees, terminated in 2003, can proceed with most of their lawsuit, which had been thrown out by a lower court. The suit names the drugmaker and five execs as defendants, the Associated Press reports.

The four longtime employees at Laboratorios Essex S.A. allege they were abruptly terminated after disclosing “widespread unethical and illegal marketing and sales practices.” They claim Schering-Plough engaged in “the pervasive and routine bribing of doctors and public officials” to boost sales of cancer and infection-fighting drugs in Argentina.

The plaintiffs say they were blacklisted in the industry for having “blown the whistle” on “corrupt acts committed by or with the complicity and approval of the defendants from their Kenilworth, New Jersey, headquarters.”

Alan Lewis, a New York attorney who reps the three men and one woman suing, says they worked for Schering-Plough for between 10 and 25 years and were in fairly senior positions when they brought to the company’s attention what they thought were violations of law.

Schering-Plough said in a statement it does not comment on pending litigation or personnel issues. “We vigorously dispute the allegations,” the statement said. “This is a preliminary ruling on legal matters which does not reflect any consideration of or judgment on the merits of the case.”

The appellate court agreed with the original Superior Court ruling on one issue: that the ex-employees’ claims they were defamed by Schering-Plough and prevented from getting other jobs in the pharmaceutical industry in Argentina shouldn’t be heard in New Jersey.

However, the appellate panel overruled the trial court and ruled the plaintiff’s whistleblower claims should be heard, and in New Jersey. Besides alleging they were wrongly terminated for discussing the marketing practices, the defendants allege they were coerced into signing settlement agreements the day they were fired, with the threat they would otherwise receive no severance pay.

The drugmaker has been paying hefty fines to settle numerous ills: In January, Schering-Plough agreed to pay $435 million to settle allegations it lied to the government about drug prices and illegally promoted two drugs for the treatment of cancers for which they were not approved.

In 2004, Schering-Plough agreed to pay $346 million to resolve charges it paid a big health insurer a kickback to protect the market for its one-time blockbuster allergy drug, Claritin. And in 2002, the company agreed to pay the federal government a then-record fine of $500 million and to resolve repeated quality control violations dating to 1998 at four manufacturing plants.

Source: The Associated Press[tags]Schering-Plough, Whistleblower[/tags]

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