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Novartis Paid Doctors Kickbacks—Will Pay $678 Million Settlement

Settlement reached yesterday:

“For more than a decade, Novartis spent hundreds of millions of dollars on so-called speaker programs, including speaking fees, exorbitant meals, and top-shelf alcohol that were nothing more than bribes to get doctors across the country to prescribe Novartis’s drugs,” Audrey Strauss, the acting U.S. attorney for Manhattan, said in a statement. “Giving these cash payments and other lavish goodies interferes with the duty of doctors to choose the best treatment for their patients and increases drug costs for everyone.”

One doctor, who wrote more than 8,000 prescriptions for Novartis drugs, received $320,000 in honorariums, according to the settlement, which did not name the doctor. Another doctor who wrote 9,000 prescriptions received $220,000 in honorariums, and a third doctor who wrote 3,600 prescriptions was paid more than $200,000.

Now, after admitting it used an extensive kickback program for nearly a decade to influence doctors to prescribe certain medications, Novartis will pay $678 million to settle a fraud lawsuit, federal prosecutors in New York announced on Wednesday.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/business/Novartis-kickbacks-diabetes-heart-drugs.html