Years into a whistleblower suit that alleged illegal kickbacks to physicians, Biogen is now finally able to end the legal saga just as the troubled drugmaker attends to a corporate restructuring.
Biogen has finalized an agreement to pay $900 million to resolve a lawsuit in which a former employee alleged that the Massachusetts biotech paid kickbacks to doctors over a five-year span starting in 2009 to boost sales of its multiple sclerosis drugs, the Department of Justice said Monday. Biogen in July said it had reached the $900 million deal in principle.
Like many companies have done in response to kickback suits filed under the False Claims Act, Biogen didn’t admit to any wrongdoing. The company “believes its intent and conduct was at all times lawful and appropriate, and Biogen denies all allegations raised in this case,” Biogen said in a Monday statement.
Former Biogen sales manager Michael Bawduniak initiated the litigation. Bawduniak alleged that Biogen held sham events between January 2009 and March 2014 to pay doctors kickbacks under the pretense of remuneration, speaker training fees and consulting fees. The company’s goal was to induce them to prescribe Biogen’s MS drugs Avonex, Tysabri and Tecfidera, the plaintiff said.
The settlement will see Biogen pay about $843.8 million to the U.S. federal government and $56.2 million to 15 states. Bawduniak himself will receive about 29.6% of the federal proceeds, or about $250 million, from the settlement, the DOJ said.
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