Drugmaker AstraZeneca faces a class-action lawsuit in the UK from 16,000 patients who were prescribed the drug Seroquel for "off-label" indications and claim to have experienced significant side effects, like weight gain and diabetes.

Internal documents show that the company had aggressively promoted the drug for off-label, unapproved uses to doctors.  Seroquel was originally created and approved to treat schizophrenia, but AstraZeneca has promoted its use for other psychiatric disorders such as bipolar disorder.  The internal documents also show that the company was aware of the dicey legal territory they were navigating:

"Other documents show AstraZeneca keeping a close eye on the legal line between promoting clinical studies of Seroquel in disorders for which it is not yet approved and outright marketing of the drug for off-label use by the commercial department. One 2004 email said that slides prepared in connection with a study involving off-label use of Seroquel were "financed outside of Commercial for obvious legal reasons". On another document, the minutes of a meeting about doctors' attitudes to anti-psychotic drugs, a brand manager had scrawled that the sales force could "grease the skids" for Seroquel's use as a treatment for dementia."