An internal e-mail from AstraZeneca Plc showed that the drug company hided some unfavorable studies on its antipsychotic drug Seroquel. The e-mail was unsealed as part the legal suit over the medicine. AstraZeneca didn’t publish the results of three clinical trials made on Seroquel and instead it picked only the information used from the studies in the presentation.

The e-mail was written by an official at AstraZeneca back in December 1999. The information which was unsealed yesterday was part of an agreement between the drug maker and the lawyers of the patients treated with Seroquel.

Now, the AstraZeneca Company faces about 9,000 lawsuits which claim that the London-based drug maker failed to warn the users of the drug that can also cause diabetes along with other health problems. John Tumas, an AstraZeneca publications manager, told colleagues in the e-mail that the biggest issue now is that they are facing the world outside who begin to criticize them about the suppression of the information.

Almost 15,000 patients sued AstraZeneca and claimed that the drug maker especially hided the issue of the connection between diabetes and Seroquel both from the doctors and the patients. The Seroquel drug was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Thus, the patients also claim that the company promoted the drug for unapproved uses.

The shares at AstraZeneca decreased 20% this year and the company fell 114 pence, which is 4.8%, to 2,243 pence in the London trading. Tony Jewell, the spokesman for the company, wrote an e-mail statement saying that AstraZeneca studied the Seroquel drug extensively and gave the FDA all the necessary data both before and after the agency approved it.