II Departamento de Medicina Social.

Article available from www.scielo.br/rsp Legal suits: pharmaceutical industry strategies to introduce new drugs in the Brazilian public healthcare system OBJECTIVE: To assess the distribution rate of legal suits according to drug (manufacturer), prescribing physician, and attorney fi ling the lawsuit. METHODS: A descriptive study was carried out to assess the lawsuits in the São Paulo State (Southeastern Brazil) courts registry in 2006, and amounts spent in complying with these lawsuits, and total costs with medication thus resulting. RESULTS: In 2006, the São Paulo State Administration spent 65 million Brazilian reais in compliance with court decisions to provide medication to approximately 3,600 individuals. The total cost of the medication was 1.2 billion Brazilian reais. In the period studied, 2,927 lawsuits were examined. These lawsuits were fi led by 565 legal professionals, among which 549 were attorneys engaged by private individuals (97.17 % of the total legal professionals). The drugs scope of the lawsuits had been prescribed by 878 different physicians. By assessing the number of lawsuits fi led per attorney, it was found that 35 % of them were brought before the courts by 1 % of them. CONCLUSIONS: The data related to the lawsuits and to the medication classifi ed according to manufacturer, show that a small number of attorneys is responsible for the largest number of lawsuits fi led to obtain these drugs. The fi nding that more than 70 % of the lawsuits fi led for certain drugs are the responsibility of one single attorney, may suggest a close connection between this professional and the manufacturer