Google is negotiating a settlement of a U.S. Justice Department investigation into pharmaceutical advertising on the site, Forbes has learned.

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The Labor Department recently found that pharmaceutical salespeople were entitled to overtime.

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In short, this limits the profit that pharmaceutical companies can make and the department has the ability to implement periodic price cuts.

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Ask anyone who works in the research department of a large pharmaceutical company tasked with developing drugs based on papers published by academic scientists.

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They chose not to give the Health and Human Services Department the right to negotiate for lower pharmaceutical prices.

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Those who supply this information include Cancer Research UK (the most important research organisation), the Department of Health, Wellcome Trust and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry.

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But another study, by researchers at the department of Veterans Affairs, puts the focus on a far older class of drugs, which are the pharmaceutical industry's perennial bestsellers for stopping another killer, heart disease--statins.

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