The US Department of Justice announced Friday that Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) has agreed in the New York federal court to pay $59.7 million to resolve allegations that one of its subsidiaries caused false Medicare claims by paying kickbacks to physicians.
The allegations were that, prior to Pfizer’s acquisition of the company for $11.6 billion in 2022, Biohaven knowingly caused the submission of false claims to Medicare and other federal health care programs by paying kickbacks to health care providers to induce prescriptions of Biohaven’s drug Nurtec ODT (rimegepant), which generated third-quarter 2024 sales of $337 million for the US pharma giant.
“Through this settlement and others, the government has demonstrated its commitment to ensuring that drug companies do not use kickbacks to influence physician prescribing,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. “The department will use every tool at its disposal to prevent pharmaceutical manufacturers from undermining the objectivity of treatment decisions by health care providers,” he warned.
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This is an excerpt of an article from STAT, the health and medicine news site that’s a partner to the Globe. For a full version of this story and related coverage, visit STAT. On the eve of Robert ...