The U.S. Department of Justice announced Pfizer (PFE.N) has agreed to pay $59.7 million to settle allegations that a company it acquired defrauded Medicare and other healthcare programmes by offering kickbacks to encourage doctors to prescribe the migraine drug Nurtec ODT.
The Justice Department stated that between 1st March 2020 and 30th September 2022, Biohaven Pharmaceuticals violated the federal False Claims Act by providing speaker fees and hosting meals at expensive restaurants to incentivise doctors to prescribe Nurtec more frequently.
According to the government, some of these speaker programmes offered no educational value, with certain doctors attending multiple times or accompanied by their spouses, family members, and colleagues who had no educational need to be present.
Pfizer discontinued the Nurtec speaker programmes after acquiring Biohaven for $11.5 billion in October 2022.
U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York, Trini Ross, said “Patients deserve to know that their doctor prescribed medications based on medical judgement, not due to financial incentives from pharmaceutical companies.
Pfizer did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement but are pleased to resolve this legacy matter, allowing us to focus on meeting the needs of patients,” the New York-based pharmaceutical company said in a statement.
The settlement resolves a lawsuit filed in August 2021 in the federal court in Rochester, New York, by Patricia Frattasio, a former neuroscience sales specialist at Biohaven.
Frattasio will receive approximately $8.4 million from the settlement, with $41.8 million allocated to the federal government and $9.5 million to state Medicaid programmes.
The False Claims Act allows whistleblowers to file lawsuits on behalf of the government and share in any recoveries.
