Pfizer is facing a lawsuit from a former employee who alleges the company illegally bolstered sales of its top-selling drug Lipitor with a campaign of education programs that misled doctors.

Dr. Jesse Polansky said that his former company ?led thousands of physicians to prescribe Lipitor for millions of patients who did not need medication.?

Polansky filed suit in February 2004 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. In August 2007, the government said it would not intervene in the case, lifting a three-year-old seal. According to Polansky’s lawyer, Pfizer was served a copy of the suit on December 19, 2007.

Polansky claims he was fired as Pfizer’s director of outcomes management strategies in 2003 after complaining about marketing materials for Lipitor and other products that he considered improper. Polansky said educational programs for doctors integrated into Pfizer’s Lipitor marketing plan deliberately misrepresented product labeling to encourage use of Lipitor in patients at moderate risk for heart attack who did not need the drug.

Pfizer said it believed the case had ?no merit.? The lawsuit could result in compensation for Polansky as a whistleblower. According to IMS Health, Lipitor is the world?s best-selling drug, selling $13.6 billion last year.

Source: David Armstrong, ?Pfizer Is Sued Over Lipitor Marketing,? Wall Street Journal, December 20, 2007.