Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. was ordered to pay Brigham Young University $852,315 in attorneys' fees and costs after a federal magistrate judge found that the company had repeatedly dragged its feet on discovery proceedings in a high profile battle over the school's contributions to the development of the anti-inflammatory drug Celebrex.

Wednesday's ruling by Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells follows a 2006 lawsuit filed by BYU Professor Daniel Simmons and the school against Pfizer. The school is seeking at least a billion dollars in compensation for essentially taking their research that led to the creation of "blockbuster" drugs such as Celebrex and then fraudulently terminating an agreement with them, precluding them from getting any profit or recognition. The school claims the drug, which is widely used for treating arthritis, has earned $30 billion.

Simmons signed an agreement with Monsanto to develop the drug in 1991, then the agreement was terminated in 1992, before Monsanto merged with Pharmacia, and later Pfizer.

The lawsuit ensued after mediation attempts between both parties failed.

BYU, in seeking to recover attorneys fees and costs associated with Pfizer's discovery abuses, alleged that the company had repeatedly delayed producing evidence and had even destroyed some of the evidence.

In Wednesday's ruling, Wells found that Pfizer "has interfered with the judicial process," and "committed discovery abuses" because it "repeatedly failed to fully comply in a timely manner."

In the ruling, she warned Pfizer that "continued delays in discovery and misrepresentations about its status or the availability of discovery will not be tolerated."

"Pfizer's production has been negligent to the point that it closely approaches a finding of bad faith," Wells wrote. "For example, it is inexcusable to find an entire collection of COX-2 related documents after many months of Pfizer's alleged super search efforts. Moreover, it was BYU that discovered the missing collection and not Pfizer coming forward with the newly discovered documents."

"The court is hopeful that such an award will 'entice Pfizer to comply with its discovery obligations,' " she wrote.

The suit says that shortly after coming to BYU in July 1989, Simmons discovered the COX-2 enzyme, which causes inflammation, and that his research is critical to the development of Celebrex and another anti-inflammatory drug, Bextra.

Instead, Monsanto and its then chief scientific officer, Philip Needleman, received credit for developing the drug.

Pfizer says the case is unfounded and claims Simmons "had nothing to do with the creation of Celebrex, the compound."

BYU spokesman Michael Smart said the magistrate judge "was very careful and thorough in her ruling, and we believe it speaks for itself. We at BYU remain confident in our case and we will vigorously pursue it to an appropriate conclusion."

"We have received the court's ruling and are evaluating our options. Although we respectfully disagree with the award of attorneys' fees, Pfizer respects the court's ruling and will abide by our discovery obligations," said Christopher Loder, Pfizer's spokesman. "As we've maintained, the facts simply do not support the unfounded claims made in this lawsuit and Pfizer will continue to mount a vigorous defense and we're confident that the facts clearly show that Monsanto fully met all the obligations of its research agreement with BYU and Dr. Simmons."

Separately, Pfizer Inc. has agreed to pay $894 million to settle lawsuits alleging that its withdrawn Bextra painkiller and widely-used Celebrex arthritis drug harmed U.S. patients and defrauded consumers.

While Celebrex has not been shown to have the same cardiovascular risks as Vioxx, a similar drug that Merck & Co. Inc. withdrew in 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ordered that all prescription anti-inflammatory drugs, including Celebrex, carry a "black box" warning about potential increased risk of heart attacks, strokes and stomach problems.

Smart declined to comment on the impact these controversial claims may have on BYU's case against Pfizer.

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• BYU, professor suing for claimed role in Celebrex development