NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pfizer will pay $59.7 million to resolve charges that a company it acquired defrauded Medicare and other healthcare programs by paying kickbacks so doctors would prescribe the migraine drug Nurtec ODT, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Friday.
The Justice Department said that from March 1, 2020, to Sept. 30, 2022, 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 more often.
According to the government, 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.
Pfizer ended the Nurtec speaker programs after paying $11.5 billion to buy Biohaven in October 2022.
~ QAGG News
