Saturday, April 27, 2013

Novartis hit by second US lawsuit in four days...

The United States government has announced its second civil fraud lawsuit against Novartis in four days, accusing a unit of the Swiss pharmaceuticals company of paying multi-million-dollar kickbacks to doctors in exchange for prescribing its drugs.

On Friday, US Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan said the government had joined a whistle-blower lawsuit filed against Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp in January 2011 which seeks triple damages under the federal False Claims Act.

The government accused Novartis of causing the Medicare and Medicaid programmes to pay millions of dollars in reimbursements based on kickback-tainted claims for medication such as hypertension drugs Lotrel and Valturna and diabetes drug Starlix.

Twenty-seven US states, the District of Columbia and the cities of New York and Chicago also joined as plaintiffs. Full story...

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