Novartis milestones be proud ! Management take a bow !

Discussion in 'Novartis' started by Anonymous, Jun 2, 2011 at 8:42 AM.

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  1. yet again........

    Novartis Told To Produce Docs In Kickbacks Suit By March 13
    By Margaret Harding

    Washington (March 04, 2015, 6:04 PM ET) -- A New York federal judge on Wednesday ordered Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. to hand over unredacted documents and privilege logs by March 13, resolving for the moment a dispute over document deadlines in the False Claims Act suit alleging the company paid kickbacks to pharmacies.

    Former Novartis employee David Kester has accused the company of providing kickbacks to pharmacies that encouraged the use of the iron reduction drug Exjade and organ transplant drug Myfortic. His attorneys told U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. Francis in a letter Tuesday
     

  2. SO WHO'S HELD ACCOUNTABLE ?

    Novartis abandons its RNAi cast-offs from Alnylam in $35M fire sale to Arrowhead
    March 5, 2015 | By John Carroll

    While the industry was largely focused on the jaw-dropping sum being paid for Pharmacyclics ($PCYC) today, Arrowhead Research has come in to buy up Novartis' ($NVS) cast-off RNAi business for the bargain rate of $10 million in cash and $25 million in stock.

    As Arrowhead notes, the deal gives it all of the Big Pharma's work in the field, where it devoted close to a decade of work.

    Arrowhead acquires patents as well as intellectual property rights to Alnylam's RNAi tech, 30 gene targets Novartis has picked from its partnership and a pipeline with three candidates that had generated preclinical data. And it follows their 2011 deal to buy out Roche's spurned RNAi work, providing some added boasting rights to being a leader in the field.

    "This is an important deal for us. Novartis has been working in the RNAi field for over a decade and their developments in proprietary oligonucleotide formatting and modifications are some of the best we've seen. We anticipate this acquisition will provide us with substantially expanded freedom to operate, proprietary technology that appears to enhance the activity of RNAi triggers, access to non-delivery Alnylam RNAi IP for 30 targets, and three programs that went through the rigorous Novartis vetting process," said Christopher Anzalone, president and chief executive officer of Arrowhead, in a statement.

    John Maraganore, the CEO at Alnylam and a fierce defender of its RNAi work, scoffed at Arrowhead's boasts about the deal--"phantasmagorical," he called it--and said the acquisition only reflects the little that Novartis was able to accomplish after years of research.

    "I think the deal reflects the value of those assets," Maraganore tells FierceBiotech this morning. "What Novartis did was frankly pretty disappointing in terms of any advance in the field. It's exactly what you'd expect from not much."

    Back in 2005, the pharma giant paid $56.8 million upfront to get started with Alnylam ($ALNY) on RNAi at a time when hopes for the field burned bright. Another $700 million was put on the table in partnership cash. Novartis devoted dozens of investigators to the field and took 31 targets from its pact with Alnylam. But by last spring, the Big Pharma declared that RNAi was still beset by difficulties, prompting their decision to wind down the work being done by a team of 26 staffers.

    "This decision was driven by ongoing challenges with formulation and delivery and the reality that the current range of medically relevant targets where siRNA may be used is quite narrow," Novartis said in a statement to FierceBiotech at the time. "In the future we will have a small group working in this field and look for partnering opportunities."
     
  3. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest


    Ding ding ding - fantastic question! I can tell you who will NOT be held accountable because they NEVER are and that's executive leadership! They are never at fault in their blinded eyes. However, who is making the decisions? Leadership. They will just find another reason to lay off reps for the hundredth time while taking no responsibility.Pathetic.
     
  4. MORE CUTS!

    MORE CUTS! Guest

    Thanks Chainsaw Joe! So who's next?

    Novartis CEO eyes more cost cuts to satisfy margin demands
    March 9, 2015 | By Tracy Staton

    Novartis CEO Joe Jimenez
    Novartis ($NVS) execs are rolling up their sleeves for another round of cost cuts. "Very significant" cost cuts, CEO Joe Jimenez tells the Financial Times
     
  5. Gilenya PML

    Gilenya PML Guest

    Multiple Sclerosis Patient Taking Novartis’ Gilenya Contracts PML
    Written by David Mills | Published on March 9, 2015

    A woman in a Gilenya after-market study says the company didn’t notify all participants about the new case of PML.

    Novartis executives have confirmed a multiple sclerosis (MS) patient has developed a rare brain infection after taking their drug Gilenya for more than four years.

    The Switzerland-based pharmaceutical company posted a notice on their website announcing the development.

    A company spokeswoman said Novartis officials were not available to comment on the case.

    One woman who is part of a current Gilenya after-market extension study said she learned about the most recent PML case after Novartis contacted another person in the study. The woman then found the announcement on the company’s website.

    Her understanding is that the patient newly diagnosed with PML had never taken Tysabri, an older MS drug that has been linked to cases of PML in the past.

    The woman in the extension study, who has MS, said she is well aware of the remote possibility of contracting PML while taking Gilenya, so she wasn’t surprised by the announcement. She was a bit miffed, however, that Novartis did not contact everyone in her study group or update their informed consent documentation.

    “I’m not upset, but I am disappointed,” the woman said.
     
  6. Time to see all the dirt
    by the ALL SWISS REJECTS !
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojOXAxUk1bQ
     
  7. What a shock

    Mar 16, 2015
    Novartis Pays $12.6M Fine for Giving Inaccurate Pricing Data to Medicare
    By ED SILVERMAN

    In what the federal government says is the largest such settlement ever reached, Sandoz has agreed to pay $12.64 million to resolve allegations that it misrepresented pricing data on medicines that were provided to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

    Sandoz, which is owned by Novartis NVS +0.87% and markets hundreds of generic drugs in the U.S., allegedly misrepresented the average sales price data to Medicare between January 2010 and March 2012, according to a statement from the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

    A Novartis spokeswoman writes that the drug maker did not admit to any liability or wrongdoing. “Sandoz continues to be committed to providing high-quality, affordable medicines to U.S. patients and conducting business with customers and the government with integrity.” As part of the settlement, Sandoz agreed to provide certification that it established a government pricing compliance program.

    As the OIG explains, Medicare uses the pricing data to set payments for most drugs covered under Medicare Part B, which are typically administered by a physician or health care provider. These may include injectable or infused medicines for treating cancer and osteoarthritis, among other maladies.

    If a drug maker submits inaccurate pricing, Medicare may overpay for the medicines. And OIG notes that the agency can seek a civil monetary penalty against drug makers that misrepresent or fail to timely report pricing data. The agency noted, in fact, that Sandoz paid a $230,000 penalty in December 2011 for late reporting of drug pricing information to CMS.

    OIG has warned the pharmaceutical industry that inaccurate pricing is a “longstanding area of concern” and, in fact, had previously issued several reports on this topic. And five years ago, OIG also issued a special advisory bulletin notifying drug makers of its intent to pursue penalties for failing to meet reporting requirements.
     
  8. What a shock

    Novartis unit hit with $110 million gender discrimination suit
    Reuters
    4 hours ago

    By Daniel Wiessner

    (Reuters) - A new $110 million (74.6 million pounds) lawsuit filed on Tuesday claims a U.S. division at Swiss drugmaker Novartis (NOVN.VX) has routinely denied female employees equal pay and promotional opportunities, five years after the pharmaceutical giant was hit with a nine-figure jury verdict over similar claims.

    The proposed class action suit filed in U.S. federal court in Manhattan says Texas-based Alcon Laboratories Inc, which was acquired by Novartis in 2010, maintains a "boy's club atmosphere" that is hostile to women and bars them from leadership positions.

    An spokeswoman at Alcon, which specializes in eyecare products, deferred questions to Novartis Corp, which did not immediately return a request for comment.

    A U.S. jury in 2010 ordered Novartis to pay more than $250 million in a separate class action that alleged widespread gender discrimination. At the time, it was the largest award in an employment discrimination case in U.S. history.

    The company at the time said it would adopt reforms to prevent discrimination and retaliation against employees who complained.

    Novartis unit hit with $110 mln gender discrimination suit Reuters 5 hrs ago
    Pharma sector hails 'sea change' in heart disease treatment Financial Times q 2 days 2 hrs ago
    More
    The plaintiffs in Tuesday's suit, Elyse Dickerson and Susan Orr, say the company violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits gender discrimination by employers, and the U.S. Equal Pay Act.

    "For years, the company paid them less than similarly-situated men, discriminated against them in assignments and other career-enhancing opportunities, and denied them promotions in favour of ... men," the suit says.

    Dickerson said she was fired from her post as a global director for complaining about inequities at the company, and is seeking $10 million and her job back.

    Orr, a research scientist, said the lack of promotions forced her to resign and is seeking at least $100 million on behalf of a proposed class of thousands of female Alcon employees.

    In its most recent annual report released in January, Novartis said it has "continued to focus on the promotion of women." Tuesday's suit, however, claims the company has no plan in place to address gender issues at Alcon.

    Dickerson and Orr are represented by the national class action law firm Sanford Heisler Kimpel, which also brought the earlier suit against Novartis.

    The case is Dickerson v. Novartis Corp, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 1:15-cv-1980.
     
  9. Joe Metro

    Joe Metro Guest

    We were too stupid to know better ...or Joe gave us crappy advice !!!

    "Reed Smith Atty To Testify On Novartis Kickback Advice
    By Max Stendahl

    New York (March 27, 2015, 2:48 PM ET) -- A Reed Smith LLP partner who previously advised Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. on its compliance with anti-kickback laws will testify at an upcoming False Claims Act trial accusing the drugmaker of giving fraudulent rebates to pharmacies, a Novartis attorney said in New York federal court Friday.

    The testimony by Joseph Metro, a member of Reed Smith’s life sciences health industry group, is intended bolster one of Novartis’ primary defenses in the U.S. government's suit: that its executives relied in good faith on legal advice regarding the company’s...."
     
  10. Scum

    Scum Guest

    Novartis accused of ‘derailing’ trials for cheap eye disease drug
    2 April 2015Emma Stoye

    The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has accused pharmaceutical giant Novartis of deliberately hindering research into the use of anticancer drug Avastin (bevacizumab) to treat age-related wet macular degeneration (AMD_ in place of the more expensive Lucentis (ranibizumab).

    Avastin is not currently approved to treat eye diseases, but there is a growing body of evidence to suggest it could have similar therapeutic effects to Lucentis. It is much cheaper (around £30 per dose compared with £1300), and the BMJ says that allowing doctors to prescribe it for this purpose could save the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) £100 million a year.

    Both drugs were developed by Roche, but Lucentis is marketed by Novartis outside the US. The medical journal carried out an investigation, and claims to have uncovered evidence that Novartis tried to ‘derail’ clinical trials in the UK. They say healthcare professionals linked to the company encouraged primary care trusts to pull out of one trial, and that Novartis targeted another publically funded trial, encouraging researchers to take part in Novartis-funded research instead.

    BMJ’s editor in chief, Fiona Godlee, repeated calls for Avastin to be made available for AMD treatment on the NHS. ‘Doctors and academics have carried out clinical trials despite threats and intimidation – and doctors leaders should follow suit and not allow themselves to be bullied,’ she said in a statement.

    Novartis has denied the allegations.
     
  11. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest


    http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/drug-firm-novartis-tried-to-scupper-trials-of-a-cheaper-version-of-eye-medicine-10150110.html

    Please wake up,

    ... drug companies spend more time and money blocking other safe, clinically valuable, and cheap options than developing their own new drugs. Recall, 1 in 3 will get cancer in the UK, yet I know of 8-9 effective cheap anti cancer drugs which will NEVER get to market. People MUST DIE to maintain government GDP and PHARMA profits which our very poorly educated politicians and government depends (5 science graduates in 650 MP's in the UK, only 1 did science beyond degree level).

    Government SUSTAINABLE solutions are not on the agenda. People are distracted by spin, cheap TV and media, by superficiality, and tatty goods and their own lack of enquiry (and indifferent education). -This is an attack on the education system NOT on people.

    Novartis will have to be let off because all the others are at it and have been let off. We are living in the DARK-AGES programmed only by the dancing lights of media screens, adverts, and rock bottom programmes we constantly stare into without question.

    (I am a medical and clinical scientist of 'reasonable' seniority and decided that there is NOTHING we can do. Money TALKS, we are extremely rapidly descending into a third rate sub culture state of an overseas power).
     
  12. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Yes, please wake up.

    The UK and USA, like most other industrialized sovereign nation-states, were created out of the history of warfare and pandemic disease - i.e., "death controls" - of which the outcomes then determined the resultant social, economic, and political systems. Governments are fundamentally military, and their relationships with religion and/or business concerns are incestuous and always have been. War Kings eventually segued into Financial Kings. Political Economies are basically organized systems of lies, operating robberies, which have become more sophisticated financial frauds - i.e., "debt controls" - but not fundamentally different. That is what made the kind of civilization that we live in now. Not much else is that original or new, except the technologies becoming billions of times more powerful and capable, due to profound, paradigm-shifting progress in basic sciences. Relating this back to our industry, the Novartis of today is essentially the Dutch East India Company of yore. Indeed, modern human civilization is indebted to its "death and debt controls", and those who are best at managing those controls are also the best at lying about them. Ergo, we end up with countries and corporations ruled by professional liars and immaculate hypocrites operating in a complex web of decreed deceits and vindicated violence, physical and/or mental. Even the money you use and value today is backed by murder. And to deeply appreciate this fact of modern human civilization is to understand why the death and debt control systems, as they are, have become our reality.

    Warfare is the oldest, best developed of social sciences, and success in war depends on deceit. The Kings were able to completely corrupt the nobility/governments to legalize frauds (i.e., land/property taxes) and employ force to make everyone else accept those frauds. Thusly, there is a direct line from the advent of atomic bombs to atomic power. Atomic bombs were the supreme manifestation of death control power, and atomic energy production was developed inside of that context, assessing every risk and benefit through metrics of “power through deceit”. When people did a risk/benefit analysis of developing atomic power production plants, their calculations were done using manipulated money, or debt, backed by the powers of government to rob and to kill at will. Their economic calculations were deliberately as short-term as possible, failing to account for the prior subsidies which produced the atom bomb.

    From the big picture historical vantage point, modern civilization is the product of industrialized "human farming", a process of thousands of years of warfare and pandemic disease. In other words, the manifestation of the double-bind Catch 22 situations in which those who could not be stopped/killed were not stopped/killed. These situations become almost infinitely more problematic by advances in science and technology, while the threat of violence to back up the frauds come from (atomic, chemical, and biological) weapons of mass destruction.

    A better industrialized, human farming is the only possible solution which would be consistent with the long-term survival of civilization. Ideally, that would happen because the people would understand that they were members of an organized crime gang, or a military organization, called their country, and thereby start to face the chronic political problems which are inherent to the nature of life in a more coherent way. However, the currently established systems are the expression of the triumph of the maximized deceits and frauds, which make more radical truth about themselves outside the grasp of people. Therefore, at present, not only do many Brits and Americans not understand that they are already inside of a basically military organization, but they also do not want to understand the basic realities of the murder systems, which are central to the industrialized human farming systems that they are actually living inside of now!

    In "modern" American civilization, this all began with the Europeans' ability to conquer, genocidally wipe out, and assimilate the surviving natives. Surely, many people make the points that the ways that the American government treated the natives was the pattern followed thereafter by many others. One could also say that continued when Africans were brought over as slaves, and kept that way for quite a long time, with their "emancipation" being a very tentative and dubious process.

    Those two treatments of natives and Africans were the backbone to the preparations for the current systems. The main difference now is that the predominantly white middle class are more and more finding out that they are not in "the club" - the people actually dominating society. Similarly, the vast majority of people fail to provide effective resistance as better dynamic equilibria between the different, deceitful systems. Instead, the ruling classes have become too successful at their long practiced and increasingly scientific methods of mind control manifested in media, communications, and public relations propaganda.

    Modern civilization needs a series of profound, philosophical and scientific revolutions in the ways that we think about political economy and human ecology, which can work through understanding better how and why we have ended up with systems that operate through the maximum possible deceits and destructive forces. A good "revolution" is a re-evolution, which should primarily become convergence and creative synthesis of ideas. At the present time, the degree to which both the rulers, and those they rule over, agree with a basically bullshit world view makes such a revolution seemingly impossible. And any successful revolution will not end up promoting false fundamental dichotomies and the related impossible ideals, which all of the co-opted, controlled opposition, old-fashioned religions and ideologies have been promoting.

    In the context of new advances in biomedicine, global terrorism, peak oil/gas, climate change, and people fighting with each other over the consequences of those things all converge in the foreseeable future, we will be forced to face real facts about the many things we deceive ourselves and choose not to confront today.
     
  13. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    How much LSD was required to come up with that?
     
  14. 12 Million!

    12 Million! Guest

    Novartis to pay Juno $12.3M in cancer immunotherapy patent settlement
    BY TAYLOR SOPER on April 6, 2015 at 8:17 am

    Seattle-based cancer research startup Juno Therapeutics today reached a settlement with Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. over a three-year patent dispute.

    The original lawsuit was brought forward in 2012, when St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the University of Pennsylvania sued Novartis over a patent dispute related to cancer immunotherapy drugs. Juno entered the litigation in December 2013 after it signed a licensing agreement with St. Jude’s.

    The settlement orders Novartis to pay Juno $12.25 million up front and award the company with future milestone payments. Juno will also receive a mid-single-digit royalty on U.S. sales of products related to the patent claims, and a low double-digit percentage of the royalties that Novartis pays to Penn for sales of those products.

    “We are pleased by this settlement, which benefits patients by allowing each party to advance its promising cancer immunotherapies and rewards the investigators on whose insights those developments are based,” Juno CEO Hans Bishop said in a statement.
     
  15. Ready to pay "reasonable" royalty to Novartis AG: Cipla to HC
    Press Trust of India | New Delhi April 27, 2015 Last Updated at 21:13 IST

    Indian pharma firm Cipla today suggested to the Delhi High Court that it was ready to pay "reasonable" royalty to Switzerland-based drug major Novartis AG if it is allowed to manufacture respiratory disease drug, 'Indaflo', which could serve 66,000 patients in India at a cheaper rate.

    However, the proposal was not received positively by the Novartis counsel who without mincing a word made a gesture of not accepting it.

    Cipla was making submission for lifting the stay ordered by a single judge bench restraining it from manufacturing the drug.

    Cipla told the bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva that public interest outweighs everything and if given the license, it will manufacture the drug as the Novartis' drug was costlier and was not available in a majority of the medical stores in the country.

    "A company, which does not manufacture drug in India and was importing it in limited quantities which is also not completely sold out, could not claim to be working on its patent," senior advocate P Chidambaram, who appeared for Cipla, told the bench.

    He, however, suggested that Cipla was willing to pay a reasonable royalty to Novartis for making the drug and would abide by any order of the court in this regard.

    At this juncture, the bench asked senior advocate Gopal Subramaniam, appearing for Novartis AG, whether royalty could be considered by the company.

    Responding to this, Subramanian nodded his head in negative.

    During the arguments, which would continue on May 20, Chidambaram opposed the restraint on Cipla to manufacture the drug by the single judge bench saying injunction was not the only way to protect the interest of Novartis AG.

    "I strongly rely on the pillars of public interest and public interest outweighs everything," he said.

    The bench was hearing an appeal filed by Cipla against the single judge bench order restraining it from making its Indacaterol-based drug till it obtains a compulsory licence.

    The court had on January 14 sought a response from Novartis AG on the plea of Cipla and has asked it as to how much quantity of drug it imports in the country and why a royalty arrangement cannot be worked out.
     
  16. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest


    What we're dealing with here is a total lack of respect for the law
    I'm the law and you can't beat the law (note)
    I'm the law and you can't beat the law
    I'm the law and you can't beat the law
    Fuck 'em and their law

    Crack down at sundown
    Fuck 'em and their law

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlEs9udOquE
     
  17. Markets | Fri May 1, 2015 8:58am EDT Related: STOCKS, REGULATORY NEWS, MARKETS, HEALTHCARE
    Express Scripts unit to pay $45 million to U.S. over Novartis kickback scheme
    NEW YORK | BY NATE RAYMOND
    May 1 (Reuters) - A unit of pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts Holding Co will pay $45 million to resolve U.S. claims it participated in a kickback scheme with Novartis AG to boost sales of a drug that led to improper government reimbursements.

    The settlement with specialty pharmacy Accredo Health Group Inc was disclosed in court papers filed Thursday in federal court in Manhattan, as the U.S. Justice Department moved to further intervene in a whistleblower case against Novartis .

    The Justice Department claimed Novartis unlawfully offered patient referrals to Accredo from 2008 to 2012 in return for recommending patient refills of Exjade, which is intended to reduce excess iron in patients who receive blood transfusions.

    The government says the scheme violated the False Claims Act and the Anti-Kickback Statute.

    The office of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said Accredo made several admissions in the settlement that it hopes to use to expand the case against Novartis.

    Express Scripts said on Friday that a settlement "was the best possible solution."

    Novartis said it continued to dispute the allegations and will continue to defend itself.

    Representatives for Bharara's office did not respond to requests for comment.

    The government announced its lawsuit against Novartis in 2013, accusing the drug company of providing discounts and rebates from 2005 to 2013 to induce at least 20 pharmacies to switch thousands of patients to Myfortic, an immunosuppressant.

    The Justice Department also said that, similar to the Accredo case, Novartis offered patient referrals and rebates to pharmacy BioScrip Inc to recommend refills of Exjade from 2007 to 2012.

    The government said Medicare, the program for the elderly and disabled, and Medicaid, the low-income insurance program, improperly paid tens of millions of dollars of improper reimbursements. Eleven U.S. states are co-plaintiffs.

    BioScrip settled for $11.7 million in January 2014.

    The government lawsuit stemmed from a whistleblower case by David Kester, a former Novartis respiratory account manager from Raleigh, North Carolina. He is also pursuing separate whistleblower claims against Novartis and other companies regarding other drugs.

    Bharara's office is continuing a separate lawsuit against Novartis, claiming Medicare and Medicaid paid reimbursements based on kickback-tainted claims for drugs such as Lotrel, Valturna and Starlix.

    The case is U.S. v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-08196. (Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
     
  18. slow down!

    slow down! Guest

    ​Amgen wins injunction against Novartis' biosimilar drug
    May 8, 2015, 12:17pm PDT

    A U.S. appeals court has blocked the sale of Novartis AG’s recently approved biosimilar form of Amgen Inc.’s cancer drug Neupogen.
    Thousand Oaks-based Amgen(Nasdaq: AMGN) appealed a lower court ruling that had rejected its request for an injunction to block the sale of Novartis’ Zarxio in the United States.

    On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington granted the injunction until the court resolves the appeal, according to Reuters.

    Oral arguments on the appeal are scheduled to begin June 3.
     
  19. Novartis Catches Flak For Clawback Bid In FCA Kickback Row
    By Jimmy Hoover

    Washington (May 21, 2015, 4:00 PM ET) -- A former Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp. employee has fired back at the drugmaker's discovery clawback efforts in a False Claims Act suit alleging drug referral kickbacks, telling a New York federal court that Novartis is withholding critical documents and improperly coaching deposition witnesses.
    In a letter Tuesday to U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV, attorneys for whistleblower David Kester said that Novartis is refusing to hand over 15 documents involving legal advice from outside counsel related to claims that Novartis gave improper rebates to pharmacies that recommended its iron reduction drug, Exjade, to patients.

    According to the letter, the documents will help break down the advice-of-counsel defense that the company said it will assert at trial when it calls Joseph Metro to the stand. Metro is a Reed Smith LLP attorney expected to testify that Novartis’ executives, in carrying out the rebate practices, relied on legal advice in good faith.

    “Each document in dispute sheds light on how the Novartis Exjade team failed to fully disclose the relevant facts to its attorneys, failed to seek legal advice pertinent to its arrangements with the Exjade pharmacies when a government enforcement action plainly revealed that the government saw a parallel sets of facts to violate the [Anti-Kickback Statute], and failed to follow the advice it received,” Tuesday's letter said.

    The letter also stated that Novartis “improperly instructed” its vice president, Steven Goldfarb, to refuse to answer a host of questions regarding legal advice he received concerning the company’s rebate practice, including alleged warnings from Metro.

    Kester said that Novartis’ coaching of Goldfarb undermines a prior waiver of attorney-client privilege, and that the vice president’s answers are critical for a jury to determine, based on the information the company shared with attorneys, whether Novartis “acted in bad faith and willfully deceived the lawyers.”

    In an early March order, Judge Francis required Novartis to produce all documents related to its advice-of-counsel defense, a privilege log of documents withheld from that production, unredacted versions of documents previously redacted on the basis of nonresponsiveness, and any additional revised privilege logs.

    The case is based on claims that the company provided kickbacks to pharmacies such as CVS Caremark Corp.'s in the form of disguised cash payments and patient referrals to encourage the use of drugs such as Exjade and Myfortic.

    The federal government intervened in the suit in April 2013, claiming the companies caused Medicare and Medicaid to pay “tens of millions” of dollars in improper reimbursements.

    Novartis spokeswoman Julie Masow previously told Law360 that Novartis “continues to dispute the government’s and the relator’s allegations and will continue to vigorously defend itself in this litigation."
     
  20. For the good of patients naturally

    Novartis Sues Apotex Over Planned Zometa Generic
    By Kurt Orzeck

    Los Angeles (June 1, 2015, 7:37 PM ET) -- Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. on Friday filed a patent infringement lawsuit in New Jersey federal court accusing Apotex Inc. of infringing its patent for the cancer drug Zometa by trying to manufacture a generic version.
    The suit is the latest in a string of actions Novartis has brought against companies attempting to make a version of the drug with primary ingredient zoledronic acid. The drug treats hypercalcemia of malignancy, a condition that arises from high calcium levels that can be brought on by cancer, among other things.