Never before has the University paid so much to settle a case, said Mark Rotenberg, the University's general counsel. The federal government filed suit against the University in 1996 for mishandling National Institutes of Health grants and profiting illegally from selling the transplant drug anti-lymphocyte globulin, which was never licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. We are pleased that it is over. In settling the case, the University closed the final chapter on what was to be an avalanche of litigation following the discovery of the University's Medical School wrongdoing in 1989.
All parties can go back to their jobs now.
The mood in St. Paul bordered on jovial in the cold, dim ambience of the cavernous courtroom when, just after 10 a.m., Judge Richard Kyle declared that the trial would begin, unless the lawyers had anything to announce. Connolly stood, smiling, and pronounced that the sides had reached an agreement and the case would be dismissed. Rotenberg said the money has already been wired to the government. Where the University will draw from in order to account for those lost funds is yet to be determined, although the Board of Regents will appropriate the money in their budget requests. The millionaire whistleblower James Zissler, a 27-year professor of microbiology in the Medical School, claimed to have blown the whistle on the scandal that effectively told the federal government about the University's misdeeds.