Novartis is being sued by the US government for allegedly giving kickbacks to pharmacies in order to switch kidney transplant patients from competitors’ drugs to its own.
The civil healthcare fraud lawsuit in US District Court in Manhattan was launched on Tuesday and seeks unspecified damages and civil penalties for the alleged offences that the government say have been going on since 2005, reports Reuters news agency.
The agency report that US Attorney Preet Bharara said Novartis lured pharmacies with kickbacks that it disguised as rebates in order to increase the sale of its Myfortic drug at around 20 pharmacies.
He added that the company’s actions resulted in patients paying tens of millions of dollars for Norvartis drugs dispensed by pharmacies that had saddled up to the pharmaceutical company. This is instead of buying competitors drugs and cheaper, generic immunosuppressant drugs.
It is also alleged that Novartis tried to conceal the scheme by omitting the agreements from rebate and discount contracts with pharmacies.
Novartis denies the allegations.
"As a leading healthcare company, Novartis strives to achieve high performance with high integrity. NPC is committed to high standards of ethical business conduct and regulatory compliance in the sale and marketing of our products," the company said in a statement to The Washington Post.
In the lawsuit, the government said the arrangement violated the federal anti-kickback statute prohibiting the offer or payment of rebates and other inducements to cause the purchase of any drug or service covered by Medicare, Medicaid or other healthcare programme.
