Healthy Skepticism Library item: 17711

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Electronic Source

Silverman E
Novartis Pays $72.5M Fine For Off-Label Marketing
Pharmalot 2010 May 5
http://www.pharmalot.com/2010/05/novartis-pays-725m-fine-for-off-label-marketing/

Full text:

Two units of the big drugmaker – Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics and Novartis Pharmaceuticals – agreed to pay the $72.5 million fine in order to resolve civil False Claims Act charges over the marketing of the TOBI cystic fibrosis medicine that took place between January 2001 and July 2006.
The US Justice Department charged Novartis and Chiron, which Novartis purchased in 2006, caused false claims to be submitted to federal health care programs for off-label uses and for patients who shouldn’t have received the drug (here is the settlement).
The federal government will get $43.5 million and various states will receive $29 million. Meanwhile, three former Chiron employees – Robert Lalley, Courtney Davis and William Manos – who filed whistleblower, or qui tam lawsuits, will receive $7.8 million of the federal share of the settlement.