Forest Laboratories is a pharmaceutical company headquartered in New York City, USA. Its revenues for the year ended 31 March 2007 were US$3.4 billion. The company's research and development spending has grown rapidly in recent years, and as of 2007, approached almost a billion US dollars a year, which put it on the list of the top 100 global corporations in R&D spending. Forest Laboratories is also known for licensing European pharmaceuticals for sale in the United States.

Forest Laboratories is listed on the New York Stock Exchange

New York Stock Exchange

The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...

 under FRX.

It should not be confused with the Forest Products Laboratory

Forest Products Laboratory

The Forest Products Laboratory is the national research laboratory of the United States Forest Service, which is part of USDA. Since its opening in 1910, the FPL has provided scientific research on wood, wood products and their commercial uses in partnership with academia, industry, tribal, state,...

.

Tax evasion

On 13 May 2010, ABC news and Bloomberg business news reported the organization "dodges taxes" by moving its profits offshore with the currently legal practice known as transfer pricing

Transfer pricing

Transfer pricing refers to the setting, analysis, documentation, and adjustment of charges made between related parties for goods, services, or use of property . Transfer prices among components of an enterprise may be used to reflect allocation of resources among such components, or for other...

. U.S. Senator Carl Levin

Carl Levin

Carl Milton Levin is a Jewish-American United States Senator from Michigan, serving since 1979. He is the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. He is a member of the Democratic Party....

 of Michigan has called transfer pricing "the corporate equivalent to secret offshore accounts of individual tax dodgers."

Fraud

In September 2010, Forest Laboratories, Inc. and Forest Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (a subsidiary of Forest Laboratories) agreed to pay more than $313 million to resolve allegations of civil and criminal liability

Strict liability (criminal)

In criminal law, strict liability is liability for which mens rea does not have to be proven in relation to one or more elements comprising the actus reus although intention, recklessness or knowledge may be required in relation to other elements of the offence...

 relating to obstruction of justice, the distribution of an unapproved new drug, Levothroid, and the illegal promotion of Celexa for use in treating children and adolescents.

Celexa and Lexapro

Forest Laboratories has illegally promoted the drugs Celexa and Lexapro for unapproved pediatric uses in treating depression.

Levothroid distribution

Forest Laboratories has distributed Levothroid in violation of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA)

Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act

The United States Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act , is a set of laws passed by Congress in 1938 giving authority to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to oversee the safety of food, drugs, and cosmetics. A principal author of this law was Royal S. Copeland, a three-term U.S. Senator from...

.

Locations

Both Lexapro and Namenda are produced in bulk at the Forest plant in Dublin, Ireland, with secondary processing, such as bottling and blister-packing, being carried out in the USA at plants in New York and St. Louis. Corporate profits end up in Forest Labs' Bermuda "subsidiary", a facility that consists of a secretary in a law office in a country with no corporate tax.

Products

Some of the products Forest Laboratories markets with its partners include:

• Aerobid
• Armour Thyroid
• Bystolic
• Campral - Maintenance of abstinence from alcohol in patients with alcohol dependence
• Celexa
• Cervidil
• Combunox
• Infasurf
• Lexapro - Depression (developed in cooperation with Lundbeck
  Lundbeck
  H. Lundbeck A/S is a Danish international pharmaceutical company engaged in the research and development, production, marketing, and sale of drugs for the treatment of disorders in the central nervous system , including depression, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease,...
  
  )
• Levothroid
• Namenda - Alzheimer's Disease
• Savella (milnacipran) - Fibromyalgia
• Tiazac
• Thyrolar
• Viibryd- Depression

External links

• Forest Laboratories
• Lexapro
• Namenda