STAT Plus: Novartis pays $678 million to settle a long-running case over alleged kickbacks to doctors
After seven years of sparring, Novartis (NVS) has agreed to pay $678 million to settle a lawsuit in which the federal government alleged the drug maker used kickbacks to doctors — including fishing trips and lavish restaurant meals — in order to boost prescriptions of several medicines.
The settlement ends a long-running battle that began in 2011, when a former Novartis sales rep named Oswald Bilotta filed a whistleblower lawsuit claiming the company ran so-called speaker programs that were actually blatant marketing tools, rather than educational sessions for doctors. And as a result of the bribes, the drug maker caused federal health care programs to overpay for medicines.
