Business, like politics, sometimes makes strange bedfellows. But more often than not, the couples it brings together are perfectly matched.
That seemed to be the case when the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, hooked up with Michael Viner.
Drug companies aren't known for their devotion to the Platonic ideal of truth. Just look at their TV ad campaign on behalf of the self-serving prescription discount plan they've placed on next month's ballot (Proposition 78), which they represent as a selfless contribution to the public weal.
Viner is an old hand at tabloid book publishing. His early venture, Los Angeles-based Dove Entertainment, became the go-to place for tell-all books related to O.J. Simpson, Heidi Fleiss and other L.A. notoriosi. In 1996, he and his wife, the actress Deborah Raffin, founded New Millennium Entertainment, which published such works as "Burning Down My Master's House," a memoir by the disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair. (Raffin filed for divorce last year.)
Viner (pronounced "VEE-ner") was also known for his frequent trips to the courthouse. Of the three authors of a 1996 Dove book about Fleiss' call girls, two sued him for sexual harassment (one claim was dismissed and the other settled in Viner's favor). The third claimed she had been stiffed on royalties, and won a jury award.
In 2003, Viner had a falling-out with Otto Penzler, a book editor who was working on a mystery anthology series for New Millennium. After a jury awarded Penzler $2.8 million in the ensuing litigation, New Millennium landed in Bankruptcy Court to be liquidated. According to lawyers familiar with the case, there is so little of the company to be liquidated that no unsecured creditor, Penzler included, will see a dime.
Viner has now started a third company, Phoenix Books. That's where PhRMA comes in.
Back in April, a lawyer named Mark Barondess approached Viner with a proposal. Barondess is a consultant to PhRMA and an author whose self-help divorce book, "What Were You Thinking??," was recently published by Phoenix.
According to the proposal, PhRMA would pay Phoenix a six-figure sum for the marketing and production of a written-to-order fictional thriller. The plotline was what Hollywood would term high-concept -- a group of shadowy terrorists conspires to murder thousands of Americans by poisoning the medicine they're importing from Canada to beat U.S. drug prices. (Think "True Lies" meets the Physicians Desk Reference.)
