J&J Settles Risperdal Lawsuit for $7.8 Million

US pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay $7.8 million to settle a lawsuit over the marketing of its antipsychotic drug Risperdal to doctors in the US state of Arkansas.

The company said the settlement did not constitute an admission of wrongdoing.

According to the newspaper Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which reported on the court filing, $2 million will go to a Texas law firm that represented Arkansas in the lawsuit filed more than seven years ago.

In 2012, a, jury in Arkansas' Pulaski County ruled that the company, through its Janssen Pharmaceutical subsidiary, committed medicaid fraud and violated a state law in its labeling and marketing of Risperdal.

The jury's $1.2 billion fine imposed on Johnson & Johnson was later overturned by the Arkansas Supreme Court.

Risperdal was first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat schizophrenia in 1993, and its registration later extended. The drug has been prescribed off label to treat attention deficit disorder in children, and has been linked by some to serious side effects such as enlarged breasts in boys as well as movement disorders such as tardive dyskinesia.

The FDA has now approved a longer-acting version of another of J&J's Janssen Pharmaceuticals unit's schizophrenia treatment Invega Trinza.