The March of Legal Settlements Continues into 2015 - Daiichi Sankyo Settles Charges of Kickbacks to Doctors for $39 Million

We are just into January and have our first legal settlement by a major health care corporation of charges of giving physicians kickbacks to spur use of a commercial product.  Like most such stories, this one got little notice.  The most extensive report was in Ed Silverman's PharmaLot blog on the Wall Street Journal site.The Summary and Allegations The basic summary...Daiichi Sankyo agreed to pay $39 million to the U.S. federal government and state Medicaid programs to settle allegations of paying kickbacks to physicians to prescribe several of its drugs. The allegations were ...that Daiichi initiated different speaker programs and paid doctors kickbacks – in the form of honoraria and meals, among other things – that were labeled as speaking fees between 2004 and 2011. The speaker programs, however, were problematic, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. How so? The feds allege that some physicians spoke only to his or her own office staff; the audience sometimes included the physician’s spouse; payments were made to physicians even when participants took turns 'speaking' about duplicative topics at dinners paid for by the drug maker; and the dinners were lavish and, sometimes, exceeded internal Daiichi cost limitations of $140 a person, according to the settlement agreement.Note that the defenders of physician - industry "collaboration" often defend payments such as speaking fees as necessary "conflicts of interest" to encourage health care "innovati...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Management Tags: conflicts of interest corporate integrity agreement Daiichi Sankyo impunity kickbacks legal settlements Source Type: blogs