Handsome drug marketing journalist Jim Edwards leaves Brandweek.

I had lunch with the good looking journalist and ladies' man Jim Edwards today.

As you probably know, Jim is a must read over at BrandweekNRX.

And he had major news: He is leaving Brandweek and his blog in August.

This is great news for Jim but sad news for the rest of us:

Jim has been accepted for the prestigious Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in economics and business journalism by Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for the 2007-2008 academic year. They only accept ten top journalists every year, and this year's class include journalists from The Wall Street Journal, Denver Post, Time, Forbes, PBS and Barron’s.

This mid-career fellowship provides full tuition and a living stipend of $50,000 for experienced journalists to take graduate courses at Columbia’s schools of business, law, and international and public affairs.

Fellows also attend special seminars at the journalism school led by scholars and business experts during the nine-month program, which begins in August. The program is open to journalists with at least four years experience.

“We look forward to welcoming the incoming class of Knight-Bagehot Fellows for a rigorous program of study here at Columbia,” said Terri Thompson, director of the program. “These journalists were selected from a pool of highly qualified reporters and writers; they represent the best and brightest in business journalism.”

Brandweek: "AstraZeneca would love to be Pfizer, dealing with Rost"

Jim Edwards over at Brandweek is getting dangerous. I guess I'm lucky he isn't a Pfizer lawyer:

Can Pfizer Get Over Its Anger and Utilize the Leverage It Has With Rost?

It's extremely difficult to ignore the fact that Fortune has done a flattering feature story on Peter Rost. Rost could be on the verge of parlaying his position in the media from "one hit blogging wonder" into "permanent fixture that all drug companies will have to deal with in the future."

Whether Rost can successfully negotiate the transition over the next couple of years will be interesting. (It won't be a secret, of course. He'll tell us all about it whether we like it or not.) My money says Rost could be in this for the long run.

There is, of course, one variable -- his two ongoing lawsuits against Pfizer, which to my knowledge are both unresolved.

What Pfizer's general counsel's office has been ignoring so far -- probably because the lawyers there find Rost infuriating -- is that they actually have a fantastic opportunity in front of them that no other drug company has: The ability to tie Rost up in a legal settlement that would prevent him from blogging about Pfizer ever again.

If Pfizer is ever able to swallow its pride and offer Rost a decent settlement, it is highly likely that they would require that he never say a public word again about the company. And given the scale of pharma settlements, it is highly likely, IMHO, that Rost would feel duty bound to accept those terms. He has a house, wife and kids to provide for after all, and bloggging and publishing don't make people rich.

Ironically, there are several pharma companies -- AZ among them -- who would love to be in Pfizer's position right now for that exact reason.
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More comments on other blogs, click on headline to read:

Peter Rost Makes a Fortune
By Impactiviti

"Fortune magazine, that is. The Whistleblower gets written up for his activities exposing wrongdoing among Big Pharma companies."

Peter Rost: A Professional Pain In The…
By Ed Silverman

"The man Pfizer loves to hate is profiled in Fortune magazine…."

"One mistake Fortune made in its article - in discussing Rost and the AstraZeneca scandal, the magazine asserts the mainstream press followed the trail. In fact, except for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Delaware News-Journal, the mainstream press missed the boat. The blogs, Rost and just a few others, including this one, forced big pharma to come to grips with this new medium. "

Fortune Magazine Touches on a Secret of Peter Rost’s Blog Success: Empathy
By pharmamanufacturing

"John Mack once suggested that some pharma bloggers write about Peter Rost in the hope of “riding in his wake,” and increasing their own site traffic and links. It might seem that way, but, let’s face it. Rost has been one of the most enigmatic figures in . . ."

FORTUNE - PharmaGossip: " Witty Brit takes on drugmakers"
By insider

"Click on this link and See the box in the middle! Oh yeah! There's also an article about some guy called Rost."

Brandweek on AstraZeneca's ZubeGate: "The mainstream media has totally had its ass handed to it on this story"

Brandweek writes: "What's interesting here—and I've said it before, as have others—is that the mainstream media has totally had its ass handed to it on this story.

The Bucket of Money scandal, with a few exceptions, has unfolded almost entirely on blogs.

It marks a real turning point in Big Pharma's relationship with the media, if only because these whistleblowers have turned to Rost rather than Alex Berenson at the Times.

I mean, how many other Congressional inquiry demands have been based on blog coverage?"

Read more about the Congressional inquiry in Brandweek: AZ Bucket of Money Coverage Triggers Congressional Demand for Off-Label Investigation and Pfizer and AZ Sales Rep Whistleblowers Highlight Unresponsive OIG.

Or go to Pharmalot and read Congressman Asks HHS To Investigate AstraZeneca And Off-Label Marketing.

Or maybe you prefer Kieran Queenie's story Big Pharma bowing to the power of blogs.

Brandweek analysis: "AZ Bucket of Money Scandal: ‘Group of 7’ Whistleblowers Emerges"

Very good analysis, don't miss this:

AZ Bucket of Money Scandal: ‘Group of 7’ Whistleblowers Emerges

"Pfizer Settles With DOJ for $35 Million in Genotropin Scandal; Who Knew?"

From BrandweekNRX

Pfizer Settles With DOJ for $35 Million in Genotropin Scandal; Who Knew?
By Jim Edwards

As expected, Pfizer has settled with the DOJ over the off-label marketing of Genotropin. The price is $34.7 million; probably an insignificant sum in terms of reporting to the SEC. Read the news here.

If you want the full background on this sordid saga, read Brandweek's lengthy account of it here.
Without wishing to be a blowhard about it, I'd like to note that what Pfizer is pleading guilty to today--including the alleged kickback scheme that Peter Rost said existed with Express Scripts--is pretty much exactly what I reported a year ago.

Rost, in fact, is already doing his victory dance.

Let us not forget all the other important people in the drug biz who are loosely, so very loosely, connected to this scandal:

First, there's Schering-Plough CEO Fred Hassan, the former chief of Pharmacia, who asked his lieutenants to "follow up" when Pharmacia was first approached by an anti-aging quack to get into the off-label human growth hormone business. Pharmacia ended up signing a contract with that guy and he bought plenty of HGH.

Then there's Jeff Kindler, the CEO of Pfizer, who as counsel to Pfizer was warned by Rost that Pharmacia was engaged in off-label marketing prior to PFE's acquisition of the company. Pfizer bought the company anyway!

And there's Marie Caroline Sainpy, Pfizer's SVP US Pharmaceuticals marketing and worldwide commercial development, who fired Rost after he started complaining about Genotropin's marketing.

Don't forget Margriet Gabriel-Regis, an svp at Schering-Plough in the specialty care customer group--while at Pharmacia she wrote a memo telling Pharmacia staff that off-label marketing was wrong but that Pharmacia was going to conduct "a series of clinical studies" to "explore clinical endpoints in the elderly" anyway!

What about Steve Mahinka, the Morgan Lewis & Bockius lawyer who wrote a hilarious memo in February 2000 advising Pharmacia it was OK to get into the anti-aging business even though it was off-label? Why so hilarious? Because it neglected to mention the criminal statute that controls HGH marketing. D'oh!

Lastly, there's Rick Collier, the former general counsel at Pharmacia, who's now general counsel at Elan Pharma, who bought that advice from Mahinka.

The DOJ says thanks for the check.

Brandweek: "Could Anna Nicole Smith's Death Boost Peter Rost's Case Against Pfizer?"

BrandweekNRX

By Jim Edwards

Could Anna Nicole Smith's Death Boost Peter Rost's Case Against Pfizer?

I can't believe I am typing these words, but ... Given that the coroner today said that human growth hormone was found in Anna Nicole Smith's body, could that assist former Pfizer vp Peter Rost in his jihad against Pfizer?

For those of you late to class: Rost sued Pfizer when the company failed to respond to his complaints that Genotropin, the brand Pfizer acquired in the Pharmacia merger, was being marketed off-label to healthy people for vanity purposes.

A Massachussetts judge kicked Rost's whistleblower suit out of court, and the feds officially declined to show an active interest. But Rost recently appealed the judge's decision on the grounds that in order to show he has a case he would have to file confidential patient data in court—which, in a classic Catch 22, is against the law.

The feds perked up again when they saw Rost's appeal, and asked for time to file their own brief. Rost suspects that the DOJ suspects that if the ruling stands it will knock out any other pharma whistleblower case that relies on patient data. The feds likely don't want that because it would make it virtually impossible to bring a whistleblower case without violating patient data privacy.

Anyway, to bring this full circle—given that Smith was using HGH, that almost certainly means she was abusing it, says Rost (it's indicated for dwarfism and various GH deficiencies, not weight problems).

And given that her death has now highlighted the prevalence of HGH abuse (check it out on Google here), could this be the extra fact that tips the appeals court to overturn the decision and allow Rost's suit to proceed?

You can't make this stuff up. Perhaps this is the ending Rost needs for his alleged movie?