Novartis has agreed to pay $678 million to settle a lawsuit claiming it bribed physicians to boost prescriptions of its drugs, the U.S. Justice Department announced July 1.
The case began in 2011 when a former Novartis sales representative filed a whistleblower lawsuit claiming Novartis ran speaker programs that were actually marketing tools rather than educational sessions for physicians, STAT reported.
The speaker programs took place between 2002 and 2011, a Novartis spokesperson told Becker's.
The whistleblower lawsuit claimed Novartis caused federal healthcare programs to overpay for its drugs.
"Not only did Novartis incentivize doctors to host these speaking events, reps bribed the doctors to write more prescriptions of the company’s drugs to give Novartis an advantage over competitors within their field," said William Sweeney Jr., assistant director-in-charge of the New York office of the FBI.
Novartis argued the speaker events took place years ago and that its compliance with federal laws has improved, according to STAT.
Last week, Novartis agreed to pay $347 million to settle allegations of paying physicians overseas to use more of its products.
"Today’s settlements are consistent with Novartis commitment to resolve and learn from legacy compliance matters. We are a different company today, with new leadership, a stronger culture, and a more comprehensive commitment to ethics embedded at the heart of our company," Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan said in a prepared statement.
Read the Justice Department's full news release here.