The Republican Senator from Iowa wants Eli Lilly to produce documents that may suggest Lilly didn't play fair in touting Zyprexa, often used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Senator Grassley wants Lilly to provide "e-mails, letters, reports" and other internal documents relating to Zyprexa. Earlier this year, a USDCT judge ruled on the dissemination of documents that were the focus of New York Times articles reporting that Lilly knowingly understated the risks of its drug, and touted it for unapproved uses. You can find the NYT article here.
From the NYT: "Lilly’s own published data, which it told its sales representatives to play down in conversations with doctors, has shown that 30 percent of patients taking Zyprexa gain 22 pounds or more after a year on the drug, and some patients have reported gaining 100 pounds or more. But Lilly was concerned that Zyprexa’s sales would be hurt if the company was more forthright about the fact that the drug might cause unmanageable weight gain or diabetes, according to the documents, which cover the period 1995 to 2004."
