J&J; Workers May Testify on Marketing

Drug maker Johnson & Johnson disclosed in a regulatory filing that the U.S. attorney in Boston wanted to talk to some present and former employees about the marketing of its Topamax epilepsy treatment.

The probe started in December 2003 and is looking at how Johnson & Johnson’s Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical unit marketed the drug, including alleged “off-label” marketing, the New Brunswick, N.J., company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Drug makers can’t promote their products for non-approved uses.

Johnson & Johnson said in the filing that lawyers for Ortho-McNeil would cooperate in facilitating the subpoenaed testimony of present and former employees before a grand jury in Boston.

Topamax had $1.03 billion in sales in the first nine months of the year.