Google – AFP, 26 April 2013
 |
Indian
protesters march during a demonstration against Swiss drug
manufacturer
Novartis in Mumbai on December 21, 2012 (AFP/File,
Indranil Mukherjee)
|
NEW YORK —
The US Justice Department on Friday accused drug maker Novartis of paying
kickbacks to doctors to prescribe the company's drugs over rival products.
In the
second US lawsuit against the Swiss firm this week, the Justice Department said
its US unit Novartis Pharmaceuticals had boosted sales of its more expensive
brand-name drugs by offering incentives to prescribing doctors that were
ultimately paid for by public health-care programs.
The
lawsuit, filed in the US district court in New York, alleged that, to promote
Novartis drugs like Lotrel and Valturna, used for hypertension, and Starlix,
for diabetes, the company paid doctors to make speeches at what were only
"social occasions" and put on lavish dinners for the doctors.
The payoffs
involved "thousands" of speaker programs in which the doctors
"spent little or no time discussing the drug at issue."
"Instead,
Novartis simply wined and dined the doctors at high-end restaurants with
astronomical costs, as well as in sports bars, on fishing trips, and at other
venues not conducive to an educational program," the suit said.
Such
actions "were, in reality, kickbacks to the speakers and attendees to
induce them to write prescriptions for Novartis drugs," the department
said.
The
payments violated the US Anti-Kickback Statute and led to the government paying
"false claims" via its health-care programs for Novartis drugs.
On Tuesday
the government filed suit against Novartis for paying kickbacks to pharmacies
to substitute its drug Myfortic for cheaper generic drugs used to help
transplant patients.
The
payments to the pharmacies amounted to tens of millions of dollars, and took Myfortic
sales in those pharmacies to $100 million, with nearly half that paid by the
government's Medicare and Medicaid schemes, the suit said.
In a
statement, Novartis disputed the claims of both cases, and said the government
was expanding the definition of "kickback" beyond the law.
"Discounts
and rebates by pharmaceutical companies are a customary, appropriate and legal
practice as recognized by the government itself."
The
government's stance, Novartis said, "threatens to undermine pharmaceutical
company discounting practices that benefit both consumers and payers, including
the government."
In
addition, it said, "physician speaker programs are an accepted and
customary practice in the industry."
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