Just as Biogen’s multiple sclerosis franchise is under serious threat from generics and new competition, the company has decided to pay top dollar to settle a long-running kickback lawsuit centered on the drugs.
Biogen has reached an agreement in principle to pay $900 million to resolve a whistleblower suit dating back to 2015, the company said Wednesday. The suit alleges that the company paid kickbacks to doctors to increase prescriptions of Biogen’s multiple sclerosis drugs Tecfidera, Tysabri and Avonex.
The payment comes close to the $981.1 million in damages the plaintiff was seeking. The suit is also asking for treble damages, which permits a court to triple the amount of the damages, plus civil penalties and certain fees.
Michael Bawduniak, a sales rep at Biogen between 2004 and 2012, originally brought the lawsuit. According to the plaintiff, Biogen held sham consulting meetings and speaking programs as venues to offer kickbacks to physicians.
The suit alleges that even Biogen’s own compliance department constantly raised concerns that there were simply too many meetings and too many consultants involved in marketing the medicines.
But when Bawduniak tried to halt the payment of alleged kickbacks, he was demoted from a director of regional marketing position in 2011 and eventually left the company the next year, he said.
A jury trial was scheduled for this past Monday but was then reset for next week, according to court records. Now, the parties appear to have...
; ; ; agreed to pay $17.07 million to settle federal allegations of illegal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hiring practices on Friday, marking the Justice Department's first resolution unde...