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#1 Skrevet : 14. september 2021 07:23:06(UTC)
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Novartis Pays Over $642 Million to Settle Allegations of Improper Payments to Patients



Pharmaceutical company Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation (Novartis), based in East Hanover, New Jersey, has agreed to pay over $642 million in separate settlements resolving claims that it violated the False Claims Act (FCA). The first settlement pertains to the company’s alleged illegal use of three foundations as conduits to pay the copayments of Medicare patients taking Novartis’s drugs Gilenya and Afinitor. The second settlement resolves claims arising from the company’s alleged payments of kickbacks to doctors.To get more latest news about novartis, you can visit shine news official website.

“Through this settlement and others, the government has demonstrated its commitment to ensuring that drug companies do not use kickbacks to influence the drugs prescribed by doctors or purchased by patients,” said Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division. “We will continue to safeguard the Medicare program from kickbacks and their pernicious effects, including the undermining of important cost-control mechanisms instituted by Congress.”

The Anti-Kickback Statute prohibits anyone from offering or paying, directly or indirectly, any remuneration — which includes money or any other thing of value — to induce referrals of items or services covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and other federally funded programs. This prohibition extends not only to improper payments to providers, but also to the improper payment of patients’ copay obligations.

In the first settlement, Novartis has agreed to pay $51.25 million to resolve allegations that it illegally paid the copay obligations for patients taking its drugs. When a Medicare beneficiary obtains a prescription drug covered by Medicare, the beneficiary may be required to make a partial payment, which may take the form of a copayment, coinsurance, or a deductible (collectively “copays”). Congress included copay requirements in the Medicare program, in part, to serve as a check on health care costs, including the prices that pharmaceutical manufacturers can demand for their drugs.

Novartis sells Gilenya, which is approved for treatment of relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis (MS). The government alleged that, in October 2012, Novartis learned from the contractor managing Novartis’s free drug program for Gilenya that over 300 patients who were receiving free drugs would be eligible for Medicare in 2013. Novartis and the contractor transitioned those patients to Medicare Part D so that, in the future, Novartis would obtain revenue from Medicare when those patients filled prescriptions for Gilenya. Knowing those patients could not afford the copay for Gilenya, Novartis developed a plan with a foundation so that Novartis could cover the copays for those patients. Specifically, at the same time Novartis made a payment to the foundation, Novartis arranged for the foundation to open its MS fund at 6:00 pm on a Friday and for the contractor to have personnel working overtime to submit applications for those patients who had been receiving free Gilenya. Novartis knew that this coordination would result in a disproportionate share of its funding going to Gilenya patients for 2013.

Novartis also sells Afinitor, which is a second-line treatment for advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and a treatment for progressive neuroendocrine tumors of pancreatic origin (PNET). The government alleged that Novartis learned that, for the 2010 donation year, it would be the only donor to an RCC copay assistance fund operated by a charitable foundation. The government alleged that Novartis told the foundation that it would be willing to donate to the fund only if the eligibility definition was narrowed in a way that ensured that a greater amount of the copay assistance would support patients taking Afinitor. The government alleged that, as a result of narrowing the fund definition, the fund disproportionately assisted patients taking Afinitor compared to its overall usage rate among RCC drugs.
The government further alleged that, in 2012, Novartis asked another foundation to open a copay assistance fund to pay copays for PNET patients, which Novartis knew would be used only to pay the copays of Afinitor patients.

“According to the allegations in today’s settlement, Novartis coordinated with three co-pay foundations to funnel money through the foundations to patients taking Novartis’ own drugs,” said U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling for the District of Massachusetts. “As a result, the Novartis’ conduct was not ‘charitable,’ but rather functioned as a kickback scheme that undermined the structure of the Medicare program and illegally subsidized the high costs of Novartis’s drugs at the expense of American taxpayers. At the same time, we recognize that Novartis’ current management has taken constructive steps to address the government’s concerns with the company’s prior relationships with co-pay foundations.”

In the second matter, Novartis will pay $591,442,008 to resolve FCA claims that it paid kickbacks to doctors to induce them to prescribe the Novartis drugs Lotrel, Valturna, Starlix, Tekturna, Tekturna HCT, Tekamlo, Diovan, Diovan HCT, Exforge, and Exforge HCT. In addition, Novartis will forfeit $38.4 million under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Statute. Novartis also made extensive factual admissions in the settlement and agreed to strict limitations on any future speaker programs, including reductions to the amount it may spend on such programs.

In a case pending in the Southern District of New York, the United States alleged that 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. Novartis paid physicians honoraria, purportedly as compensation for delivering a lecture regarding a Novartis medication, but, as Novartis knew, many of these programs were nothing more than social events held at expensive restaurants, with little or no discussion about the Novartis drugs. Indeed, some of the so-called speaker events never even took place; the speaker was simply paid a fee in order to induce the speaker to prescribe Novartis drugs.
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