Brian J. McCormick, Jr. is among the leading mass tort and whistleblower lawyers in the nation.
McCormick joined Ross Feller Casey in 2014 and has a national practice that includes pharmaceutical injury and products liability mass tort litigation, as well as representing whistleblowers in cases involving the waste of government funds and resources.
McCormick has assisted the U.S. government to successfully prosecute several landmark qui tam actions, including representing individuals in four of the largest whistleblower settlements in U.S. history:
•U.S. ex rel. Rainero v. Pfizer, Inc.: Pfizer, Inc. agreed to plead guilty to criminal conduct and to pay $2.3 billion in fines, penalties and damages to settle allegations that the pharmaceutical giant defrauded Medicare, Medicaid and other government-funded healthcare programs through its market practices for four of its drugs, including Geodon and Zyvox.
•U.S. ex rel. Starr v. Johnson & Johnson: Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries paid more than $2.2 billion to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from allegations relating to the prescription drugs Risperdal and Invega, including promotion for uses not approved by the FDA, and payment of kickbacks to physicians and to the pharmacy providers. The global resolution was one of the largest healthcare fraud settlements in U.S. history.
•U.S. ex rel. Rudolph v. Eli Lilly & Co.: Eli Lilly agreed to plead guilty and pay $1.415 billion for promoting its drug Zyprexa for uses not approved by the FDA. It included a criminal fine of $515 million — at that time the largest ever in a healthcare case, and the largest criminal fine for an individual corporation ever imposed in a United States criminal prosecution of any kind. Eli Lilly also paid $800 million in a civil settlement with the federal government and the states.
•U.S. ex rel. Wetta v. AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, LP: AstraZeneca agreed to pay $520 million in civil fines, penalties and damages to settle allegations that the company defrauded Medicare, Medicaid and other government-funded healthcare programs in connection with its marketing for the blockbuster atypical antipsychotic Seroquel.
Before becoming one of the nation's top mass tort and whistleblower litigators, McCormick was a partner in the Philadelphia office of a large, international law firm. There, he represented Fortune 500 companies in a variety of complex commercial litigation matters, including corporate investigations, shareholder and partnership disputes, securities litigation, healthcare matters and Medicare fraud.
