AstraZeneca will pay $34m to resolve a lawsuit alleging the company used illegal kickbacks, including free nursing services, to induce providers to write prescriptions for products paid for by Texas Medicaid, reports Fierce Pharma.
The company has denied all accusations and said the settlement stems from “a mutual desire to avoid costly … protracted litigation”.
Filed under the Texas Health Care Programme Fraud Prevention Act (THFPA), the complaint claimed AstraZeneca provided free nursing services and reimbursements to healthcare providers “under the guise of non-branded counselling”, to influence them to prescribe the company’s drugs, alleged Texas.
Many of the prescriptions were covered by Medicaid, resulting in “millions of dollars in claims to Texas Medicaid that were tainted by AstraZeneca’s illegal inducements”.
Over the past year, Texas has filed similar lawsuits against Eli Lilly and Sanofi for providing free nurses and paying third parties who are alleged to have steered patients to those companies’ products.
In supplying these healthcare professionals, the companies can manage the care of patients in place of independent physicians.
In agreeing to the settlement, AstraZeneca did not admit to wrongdoing.
“The agreement is the result of a mutual desire to settle their disputes amicably and to avoid the delay, expense, litigation costs, inconvenience, and uncertainty of protracted litigation,” it reads.
A spokesperson said the company denies the claims and “continues to firmly believe our programmes are lawful, ethical and address an area of unmet need for patients”.
A decade ago, Lilly and Novo Nordisk faced allegations of using similar nursing services and “white coat” sales schemes, respectively, to influence the marketing of their insulin products.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Hundreds charged in US multi-billion-dollar healthcare fraud crackdown
Gilead forks out $200m settlement after kickbacks to doctors
Pfizer to cough up $59.7m over drug kickbacks
Abbott Laboratories and AbbVie settle in TriCor kickback case