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Pfizer's Off-Label Bextra Team Was Called "The Highlanders"

By Jim Edwards

Updated on: June 26, 2009 / 12:27 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

The Pfizer sales team leader convicted of deleting computer documents in a federal investigation of off-label Bextra sales called his staff "The Highlanders," according to an email produced in Massachusetts federal district court. The nickname is a reference to a movie and TV show about an immortal Scottish swordsman from the 1500s who must kill or be killed by other immortals living secretly among us.

Thomas Farina, a former district sales manager at Pfizer, was found guilty of obstruction of justice. He faces a possible 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

In a motion that argues Farina should be acquitted, post-verdict, because he only hid documents from Pfizer's lawyers and not the government, Farina's lawyer included an email from Farina to his sales team alerting them that they should preserve documents relating to Bextra for litigation purposes. His email (pictured, click to enlarge) passes on the memo with these words:

Highlanders,

FYI

Farina's email signature is "There Can Be Only One," a reference to the motto of the movie. Farina's boss, Mary Holloway, was fined $75,000 and given two years' probation for directing a sales team of about 100 reps who distributed off-label information about the painkiller. Pfizer agreed to pay $2.3 billion to settle charges the sales had defrauded Medicare. When the government investigated Farina's role in the scheme, they found he had deleted files from his computer. Farina reset the time and date on his computer, altered documents to remove off-label references, and then resaved the documents so that they appeared to be older.

Farina will be sentenced in July. Judging by this thread on CafePharma, there's some sympathy for Farina within Pfizer, and some of his colleagues may be at the sentencing. Their belief is that Farina panicked and was thrown under a bus by his managers. Holloway has told the court that Pfizer approved of her actions.

Download the motion, the email and the witness list in Farina's trial -- which names the Pfizer employees who testified against him -- here.