The company has agreed to pay $1.2 billion to settle 28,500 lawsuits from people who say they were injured by Zyprexa, and more than 1,000 lawsuits are still pending. Several states are suing the company to recover prescription costs and damages. In April, a shareholder class action lawsuit was filed representing people who bought shares of Eli Lilly stock between 2002 and 2006.

GENETIC STUDY COULD LEAD TO NEW MEDICATIONS

A recent study of postmortem prefrontal cortical brain tissue from adults diagnosed with schizophrenia found that levels of gene-regulating molecules called microRNAs were lower in this group, compared with people without psychiatric illness. "To our knowledge this study is the first to associate altered expression of microRNAs with schizophrenia," say the authors, who are based at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

This article is based on information supplied by The Medical Letter ( http://www.medicalletter.org/), a non-profit organization that publishes critical appraisals of new drugs and comparative reviews of older drugs. It is independent of the pharmaceutical industry and is supported entirely by subscription sales. Institutional site license inquiries: info@medicalletter.org
.

Elaine Zablocki has been reporting on healthcare for more than a dozen years. She can be reached at mhc@ezab.net