Pfizer Destroyed Arthritis Drugs’ Files, Investors Claim

Pfizer Inc. (PFE) destroyed documents about the development of its Celebrex and Bextra arthritis drugs while denying the existence of electronic databases containing millions of files about the medicines, lawyers for some of the companys investors said in court filings.

Pfizer officials should be sanctioned for denying they had a centralized filing system for Celebrex and Bextra files and discarding records after investors filed suit accusing the company of misleading them about the drugs prospects, shareholders attorneys said in a court filing that was unsealed Nov. 16 in federal court in Manhattan. Pfizer executives later acknowledged the company maintained more than 2,000 so-called e- Rooms that stored documents about the drugmakers products, the lawyers said.

Defendants destroyed documents in bad faith and compounded their initial misconduct by making false statements about the existence of centralized databases, Jay Eisenhofer, a New York-based attorney serving as lead counsel in the investors securities-fraud suit, said in the filing.

Last month, Pfizer officials agreed to pay $164 million to settle claims by a separate group of investors that the drugmaker distorted the results of a study about Celebrexs safety profile.

Pfizer officials said today they are asking the judge in New York to throw out investors claims over statements about the drugs and called the sanctions request over the companys document handling baseless.

Pfizer officials also are seeking sanctions against investors who have sued over the companys statements about Celebrex and Bextra for their failure to preserve electronic documents relevant to this litigation, Chris Loder, a company spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement.

Pfizer has complied with its document production obligations in this case, Loder said. The drugmaker is looking forward to an adjudication of this case on the merits.

U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain in New York, who is presiding over a series of investor suits filed in 2004, ruled in March that shareholders could band together to sue Pfizer over its statements about Celebrex and Bextra.

No trial date has been set in the case against New York- based Pfizer, the worlds largest drugmaker. The company opposed shareholders requests to have their cases granted class-action status.

Celebrex is Pfizers fifth best-selling medicine, with almost $2.5 billion in annual sales. Pfizer officials pulled Bextra off the market in 2005 after it was linked to an increased risk of heart attacks and a rare skin condition.

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Pfizer Destroyed Arthritis Drugs’ Files, Investors Claim