Jude Concepcion, the senior legal director at Eisai Inc., took a pugnacious stance when battling pharmaceutical fraud charges; he helped his company settle an off-label marketing case for $11 million without a requirement to overhaul company compliance. The case about improper marketing of the company’s anti-epileptic drug Zonegran settled in December 2010 with the drug’s original owner, Elan Corp., footing the bulk of the $214.5 million bill.
Concepcion, 38, knew that Japanese parent company Eisai Co. Ltd. was inheriting a troubled drug marketing strategy when it bought the drug from Elan in March 2004. But Eisai wanted to make inroads into the U.S. anti-epileptic market, so Concepcion led a quick revamp of the drug’s new promotional materials, along with a retraining of the sales force. It wasn’t enough to avoid a January 2006 subpoena, but avoiding a corporate-integrity agreement was a coup. Eisai insisted it would litigate instead of signing such an agreement, Concepcion said. “We were very aggressive back towards the government.”
