RALEIGH, NC (March 10, 2017)…Attorney General Josh Stein announced today that North Carolina has settled allegations against Forest Laboratories LLC, and Forest Pharmaceuticals Inc., (“Forest”). Forest violated the anti-kickback statute, which prohibits providing payment and rewards to induce referrals of items or services covered by federal health care programs. These incentives include providing payments and meals to physicians in connection with speaker programs about Bystolic®, Savella®, or Namenda®, between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2011.
“Medical costs are growing and kickbacks like these drive up consumer costs,” said Stein. “These companies are encouraging physicians to prescribe certain medications to line both the pharmaceutical companies’ and the physicians’ pockets. Patient care, not financial gain, should be a physician’s top priority.”
The State contends that the payments and meals were intended to induce physicians to prescribe the named drugs because:
• the physician made a presentation when there were no licensed health care professionals in attendance;
• the physician made a presentation to attendees, including in some cases the physician’s colleagues or staff members who, over a short period of time, attended multiple presentations about the same drug;
• the meals associated with the presentations at times exceeded Forest’s own internal cost limitations; or
• the physician did not actually make a presentation either because the program was cancelled (and there is no record of a reason for the cancellation) or because no attendees appeared.
As a result of the $38 million settlement, the federal government will receive $35.5 million and state Medicaid programs will receive $2.5 million. Of that, North Carolina will receive $273,586.62 in restitution and other recovery.
A North Carolina Department of Justice Press Release