Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. has agreed to pay $60 million as part of a settlement to resolve false claims allegations relating to improper physician payments by one of its subsidiaries, according to a Department of Justice (DOJ) statement.
The DOJ said that between March 2020 and September 2022, Pfizer subsidiary Biohaven Pharmaceuticals violated the federal False Claims Act by providing speaker honoraria and meals at high-end restaurants to doctors, to induce them to prescribe Nurtec ODT, a migraine drug, more often.
Some speaker programs were attended multiple times by the same doctors, resulting in no educational benefit, or attended by doctors’ spouses, family members, and colleagues who had no educational need to be there, the department added.
The False Claims Act anti‑kickback statute referenced by the DOJ bars entities from paying or offering anything of value to trigger the referral of services to items that are covered under federal health care programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, or others. It’s designed to make sure that the judgments made by health care providers will not be “compromised by improper financial incentives,” the statement said.
The False Claims Act allows whistleblowers to sue on behalf of the government and share in recoveries.
“Patients deserve to know that their doctor is prescribing medications based on their doctor’s medical judgment, and not as a result of financial incentives from pharmaceutical companies,” said U.S. Attorney Trini E. Ross with the Western District of New York in a statement. “This settlement reflects our commitment to hold those who violate the laws accountable, regardless of their status or prestige.”
Pfizer, which bought out Biohaven in October 2022, ended the speaker programs for Nurtec at that time. Pfizer acquired the company for about $11.6 billion, making Biohaven a wholly owned subsidiary of the pharmaceutical giant.
Pfizer did not admit to any wrongdoing in agreeing to settle in the case.
“We are pleased to put this legacy matter behind us, so that we can continue to focus on the needs of patients,” a spokesperson for Pfizer, which also made the commonly used mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, said in a statement last week as the DOJ announced the settlement.
The spokesperson also told news outlets that “the settlement relates to alleged conduct at Biohaven before Pfizer’s acquisition of the company in October 2022 and does not include any admission of liability or wrongdoing.”
The settlement resolves an August 2021 lawsuit filed in the Rochester, New York, federal court by Patricia Frattasio, a former Biohaven neuroscience sales specialist. Frattasio will receive about $8.4 million from the settlement. About $41.8 million will go to the federal government and $9.5 million will go to state Medicaid programs.
The Epoch Times has contacted Pfizer for additional comment.
Like a number of other major U.S. drug manufacturers, Pfizer has paid out a number of settlements over the years, including one for $24 million in which prosecutors alleged that it also violated the False Claims Act.
Pfizer in 2009 also reached a $2.3 billion settlement in what the DOJ billed at the time as the “largest health care fraud settlement” in the history of the United States. In that case, the company illegally promoted certain pharmaceutical products that ran afoul of the False Claims Act following whistleblower complaints, officials said at the time.
Reuters contributed to this report.
