Novartis Finalizes Settlement of Speaker Program Litigation in U.S.--Update
July 01 2020 - 9:38PM
Dow Jones News
By Stephen Nakrosis
Novartis AG on Wednesday said it completed an agreement with the
U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, the
New York State Attorney General and relator Oswald Bilotta, which
will see it pay a $678 million settlement to resolve "a civil suit
challenging speaker programs and other promotional events conducted
from 2002 through 2011 by Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp."
As part of the settlement, Novartis said, it "agreed to new
corporate integrity obligations with the Office of Inspector
General of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services that
will change how the company delivers peer-to-peer programs in the
U.S."
Vas Narasimhan, the company's chief executive, said "Today's
settlements are consistent with Novartis commitment to resolve and
learn from legacy compliance matters."
The company said it fully provisioned for this settlement in
July of last year.
The U.S. alleged Novartis hosted tens of thousands of speaker
programs and related events "under the guise of providing
educational content, when in fact the events served as nothing more
than a means to provide bribes to doctors," the Justice Department
said in a statement late Wednesday.
Novartis paid physicians, purportedly as compensation for
delivering lectures regarding a Novartis drug, the Justice
Department said. But many of the programs were nothing more than
social events held at expensive restaurants, with little or no talk
about the Novartis medication, prosecutors said. Some of the
so-called speaker events never even took place, prosecutors
said.
"Giving these cash payments and other lavish goodies interferes
with the duty of doctors to choose the best treatment for their
patients and increase drug costs for everyone," Acting U.S.
Attorney Audrey Strauss for the Southern District of New York said
in a statement. "This office will continue to be vigilant in
cracking down on kickbacks, however they may be dressed up,
throughout the pharmaceutical industry."
Also on Thursday, Novartis said it completed a previously
disclosed agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice and the
U.S. attorney's office for the District of Massachusetts, which
will see it pay $51.25 million "to resolve an investigation related
to the company's support of certain independent charitable copay
foundations from 2010 to 2014."
Under the terms of this settlement, the company said, it "agreed
to additional corporate integrity obligations with OIG to further
enhance its controls relating to its interactions with ICCFs."
Novartis said it had provisioned for this settlement.
Jack Hagel contributed to this article.
Write to Stephen Nakrosis at Stephen.Nakrosis@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 01, 2020 21:23 ET (01:23 GMT)
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