Pfizer has to pay $59.7m to resolve charges that a company it acquired defrauded Medicare and other healthcare programmes by paying kickbacks so doctors would prescribe the migraine drug Nurtec ODT, the US Department of Justice has said.
It found that between 1 March 2020 and 30 September 2022, Biohaven Pharmaceuticals violated the False Claims Act by providing speaker honoraria and meals at high-end restaurants to doctors, to induce them to prescribe Nurtec more often.
Some speaker programmes were attended multiple times by the same doctors, resulting in no educational benefit, or attended by doctors’ spouses, family and colleagues who had no educational need to be there.
Reuters reports that Pfizer ended the Nurtec speaker programmes after paying $11.5bn to buy Biohaven in October 2022.
“Patients deserve to know their doctor is prescribing medications based on his or medical judgment, and not as a result of financial incentives from pharmaceutical companies,” said Trini Ross, US Attorney for the Western District of New York.
Pfizer did not admit wrongdoing in agreeing to settle.
The settlement resolves an August 2021 lawsuit filed in the Rochester, New York federal court by Patricia Frattasio, a former Biohaven neuroscience sales specialist.
She will receive about $8.4m from the settlement. About $41.8m will go to the federal government and $9.5m will go to state Medicaid programmes.
The False Claims Act lets whistle-blowers sue on behalf of the government, and share in recoveries.
Reuters article – Pfizer to pay $59.7 million over kickbacks for migraine drug (Open access)
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