The feds are suing Novartis for allegedly paying off doctors via bogus speaking engagements at theme restaurants, on fishing boats, and other inappropriate locales.
Last week the U.S. Department of Justice joined a qui tam suit, now known as United States ex rel. Bilotta v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation et al., originally brought in 2011 by Oswald Bilotta, a former Novartis sales representative.
The U.S. declined to associate itself with some of Bilotta’s claims but joined in charging that “Novartis caused false claims to be submitted to federal health care programs by paying kickbacks to doctors in conjunction with its speaker programs to induce the doctors to write prescriptions for certain Novartis pharmaceutical products,” according to court documents.
Most of the files are still sealed, but in a
press release DOJ alleges that the U.S. arm of the global pharma giant “corrupted the prescription drug dispensing process with multi-million dollar ‘incentive programs’ that targeted doctors who, in exchange for illegal kickbacks, steered patients toward its drugs.”
The payoffs for pimping hypertension drugs Lotrel and Valturna and diabetes drug Starlix were allegedly made through “events that were often little or nothing more than social occasions” at which the doctors were paid to speak. Many were held in “circumstances in which it would have been virtually impossible for any presentation to be made, such as on fishing trips off the Florida coast. Other Novartis events were held at Hooters.”
Still others “did not occur at all or that had few or no attendees.”
DOJ also charges Novartis padded the tab by treating doctors to meals with outrageous price tags. (We’re not sure that the $672 per person meal in Washington, D.C. that DOJ mentions is so far out of the ordinary, but we doubt one can spend $1,042 per person for dinner anywhere in West Des Moines, Iowa.)
Making matters worse, Novartis is already under a corporate integrity agreement for similar offenses.