A state ruling was handed down to Novartis on Monday, and not in the Big Pharma’s favor.
The ruling from New Jersey’s Superior Court, Appellate Division from earlier this week upheld a trial court’s ruling against Novartis from 2019 that mandated that a former company exec-turned whistleblower be paid a net amount of approximately $1.5 million.
The appeal, heard by a 3-judge panel, was argued before the court on February 3rd as both parties appealed certain elements and judgements in the case.
There’s a bit of history in this case — back in 2012, former Novartis exec Min Amy Guo, executive director of Novartis’s health economics and outcomes research group, expressed concerns that a potential cancer study for Afinitor, run by McKesson, could violate a federal anti-kickback law. She was terminated the following year as Novartis alleged she had violated company policy, and in 2014 she filed suit against Novartis under New Jersey’s CEPA law (Conscientious Employee Protection Act).
In 2019, a New Jersey state jury found Novartis guilty of retaliation and awarded Guo more than $1.8 million in a 7-1 vote. However, the jurors unanimously also awarded $345,000 to Novartis on the company’s claim of unjust enrichment, a legal doctrine where a party gets benefit at another’s expense without that part getting proper restitution under the law.
This second verdict was based on the jury’s finding that Guo had violated company policy, which Novartis had counterclaimed. Beyond that second...
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