Health security

The Zyprexa Papers: A Legal System for Drug Companies and Lawyers…Not the Public

On November 28, 2006, attorney Jim Gottstein received a phone call that would change his life. It would propel Gottstein into a legal war against the giant pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, who would retaliate against him for his release of Lilly’s own documents about its drug Zyprexa. A U.S. District Court would rule that Gottstein had conspired to steal these documents, and Lilly would threaten Gottstein with criminal contempt charges. Gottstein’s The Zyprexa Papers (2020) is an account of his odyssey.

Lilly had good reasons to be fiercely protective of Zyprexa (the brand name for olanzapine), approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for people diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Zyprexa, by 2017, had lifetime sales of $60.6 billion.

The phone call Gottstein received in 2006 was from physician Dr. David Egilman, who said that he had been hired as an expert witness by a law firm representing patients treated with Zyprexa who had developed diabetes or other metabolic problems...