J&J Sues Ex-Employee Over Alleged Theft of Trade Secrets for Pfizer

J&J has filed a lawsuit against a former employee - Andrew Brackhill - accusing him of illicitly downloading and taking thousands of sensitive documents with him to Pfizer. In a New Jersey federal court, J&J have alleged Brackhill “clandestinely and maliciously” downloaded more than a thousand sensitive strategy-related files onto external hard drives just three weeks before resigning. Brackhill, took up the role as director of contract strategy, specialty products at Pfizer in 2023, moving from his sole as J&J’s new product launches director, U.S channel strategy. At J&J, Brackhill had access to confidential sales data, market research, and strategic planning.

The following article originally appeared in Fierce Pharma.

As two of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer have long been rivals in various therapeutic areas. That made for an intriguing backdrop when a J&J employee changed sides and allegedly brought thousands of confidential strategy-related files with him.

The drugmaker has sued its former employee Andrew Brackbill in New Jersey federal court, claiming he “clandestinely and maliciously” downloaded more than a thousand sensitive strategy-related files onto external hard drives three weeks prior to his resignation, Stat News first reported.

To make matters worse, Brackbill then accessed the J&J information while on the clock in his new position at Pfizer, J&J alleged.

In addition to the company files, Brackbill transferred personal photos and documents in what J&J claims was an attempt to hide the theft. A company security program flagged the large file transfer, leading to an investigation that included an interview and a forensic examination.

Brackbill’s most recent title during his 24-year career at J&J was Director of Trade Channel Strategy, a role which gave him access to extremely confidential information necessary to make important strategic decisions.

The position is within J&J’s Strategic Customer Group (SCG) department, which is effectively responsible for creating and developing competitive strategies for the company’s medicines. Brackbill had access to confidential sales data, customer and channel lists, pricing models, market research, contracting strategies, launch playbooks and other strategy plans.

Brackbill resigned from J&J in July of last year and finished his last day in August. His new role at Pfizer is as Director of Contract Strategy, U.S. market access, a position that J&J says is a “directly competitive” one.

Pfizer didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

In an industry so rife with competition, such accusations are not uncommon.

In October, Novartis accused one of its former staffers of transferring some 10,000 files to his personal email about a month before he left the company to eventually start at Takeda in a “similar” role, the company argued in its complaint.

Pfizer itself sued a “soon-to-be former employee” in 2021, accusing the staffer of uploading more than 12,000 files to a personal Google Drive account, some of which could contain confidential information about the company’s COVID-19 vaccine.

More recently, Pfizer took two ex-employees to court claiming they stole “the hard work” of Pfizer scientists when setting up a new company.

For more, please find the original story source here.