Forest Laboratories is a pharmaceutical company headquartered in New York City, US. 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. The company also has offices in St. Louis, Cincinnati, Jersey City, Oakland, Dublin, Kent and Paris.

 

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)

• Levothroid

• Linzess

• Namenda - Alzheimer's Disease

• Savella (milnacipran) - Fibromyalgia

• Tiazac

• Thyrolar

• Viibryd- Depression

 

Criminal activities

In September 2010, Forest Laboratories, Inc. and Forest Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (a subsidiary of Forest Laboratories) agreed to pay more than US$313 million to resolve allegations of civil and criminal liability relating to felony obstruction of justice and the illegal distribution and promotion of pharmaceuticals, charges to which it plead guilty. One of the pharmaceutical-related charges was a misdemeanor charge of illegally promoting the drugs Celexa and Lexapro for unapproved pediatric uses in treating depression.The other drug-related charge was a misdemeanor charge of distributing the unapproved drug Levothroid in violation of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA).Certain of the criminal activities were revealed with the help of whistleblowers, who were slated to receive US$14 million from the federal component of the settlement.

 

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.