Consumer Class Certified in Ground Breaking Invasion of Privacy Class Action.

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 23, 1999--

According to the law firm of Finkelstein & Krinsk, class certification was granted by Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Raymond J. Brassard in the ground-breaking class action lawsuit against CVS Pharmacy, Inc., and certain major pharmaceutical manufacturers.

With this Court certification, the thousands of customers of CVS Pharmacies in Massachusetts who were subject to the defendants' alleged wrongdoing are automatically included in the lawsuit, which seeks injunctive relief and financial recovery for the defendants' conduct.

The lawsuit alleges that defendant CVS, while assuring customers that the only people who will have access to prescription information are "you, your CVS pharmacist and your doctor," deceptively collected, misappropriated and disclosed for its own commercial benefit the personal and private medical information that its customers had entrusted to it without prior consent or any other appropriate authorization. Specifically, plaintiffs allege that CVS used private customer information in its central database to identify individuals meeting specified medical profiles in order to target them for a direct mail marketing program. The program was funded and directed by the defendant pharmaceutical manufacturers and was designed, amongst other reasons, to persuade those targeted to use the manufacturer defendants' drugs. The letters were on CVS letterhead and, to the exclusion of other competitive and potentially less costly alternatives, only those drugs manufactured by the manufacturer defendants were recommended by CVS in this way. To accomplish defendants' purposes, private information was disclosed to a national database marketing company and a mass mailing house. Last June, the Court denied defendants' motions for summary judgment.

"One scholar has described defendants' scheme as a gross invasion' and a breach of fundamental medical ethical issues,'" said Arthur L. Shingler, Esq., counsel for the class. "Such abuses are rampant in the pharmaceutical industry. Private information is no longer private but seen only as a means of profit."

Finkelstein & Krinsk is a prominent San Diego, California-based law firm with a national practice centering on business/consumer fraud cases and those involving violations of the federal securities and antitrust laws. The firm has been recognized for successfully prosecuting hundreds of class action lawsuits since the firm's inception.

For any inquiries, to discuss this lawsuit or the misuse of private consumer information, contact: Jeffrey R. Krinsk or Arthur L. Shingler at Finkelstein & Krinsk, 501 West Broadway, Suite 1250, San Diego, CA 92101, or by calling toll free 877-493-5366. E-mail - [e-mail]. Fax [phone].