Novartis milestones be proud ! Management take a bow !

Quote
Novartis braces for $2.5-billion hit from Gleevec copies
  • Himani Chandna, New Delhi |
  • Updated: Feb 03, 2016 13:31 IST

An explosion of copycat generics of the blockbuster cancer drug Gleevec is likely to result the Swiss pharma giant, Novartis, taking an impact of as much as $2.5 billion on its annual sales, the company is learnt to have said.

The generic version of Gleevec was launched in the US recently by Sun Pharmaceuticals.

“For Gleevec, we assumed February entry of the first generic. We believe it will be exclusive for the first six months, and our working assumption is there will be multiple entrants after those six months,” Harry Kirsch, chief financial officer at Novartis told analysts in the company’s earnings call last week, according to some analysts who participated in the call.

Sun PharmaPharma’s generic has got 180 days of marketing exclusivity from the US Food and Drug Administration as it was the first to file on the generic. After that, there will be an explosion of copycat Gleevec generics, the company feels.

Natco and Teva pharma have already prepared with their generic Gleevec variants.

The patent expiry of Gleevec, which has been Novartis’ mainstay product since 2001, has put around $2.5 billion of annual sales at risk. In the US, Gleevec had the largest market share (12.5%) among cancer drugs and posted $4.7 billion in global revenue in 2015.

Novartis expects an impact on sales to the tune of $1 billion due to the ‘genericisation’ of Gleevec. “In 2016, the company expects genericisation of Gleevec to start in February in the US and December in Europe, contributing to the overall expected generic impact of $3.2 billion (against $2.2 billion in 2015) on sales,” Kirch told analysts.

In fact, the company feels the Gleevec episode could cause its revenue and profit for 2016 to stagnate at the previous year’s $49.4 billion level.

Asked about the analysts’ call, Novartis confirmed the information, but denied commenting on its plans to take on competition due to generic launches.

Gleevec, tagged as a wonder drug for cancer patients, costs about $90,000 annually in the US. The generic launched by Sun Pharma would bring the price down to roughly $60,000 for a year’s course. Proliferation of competition is likely to further reduce the prices.
 






2.5 Billion Hit said:
Novartis braces for $2.5-billion hit from Gleevec copies
  • Himani Chandna, New Delhi |
  • Updated: Feb 03, 2016 13:31 IST

An explosion of copycat generics of the blockbuster cancer drug Gleevec is likely to result the Swiss pharma giant, Novartis, taking an impact of as much as $2.5 billion on its annual sales, the company is learnt to have said.

The generic version of Gleevec was launched in the US recently by Sun Pharmaceuticals.

“For Gleevec, we assumed February entry of the first generic. We believe it will be exclusive for the first six months, and our working assumption is there will be multiple entrants after those six months,” Harry Kirsch, chief financial officer at Novartis told analysts in the company’s earnings call last week, according to some analysts who participated in the call.

Sun PharmaPharma’s generic has got 180 days of marketing exclusivity from the US Food and Drug Administration as it was the first to file on the generic. After that, there will be an explosion of copycat Gleevec generics, the company feels.

Natco and Teva pharma have already prepared with their generic Gleevec variants.

The patent expiry of Gleevec, which has been Novartis’ mainstay product since 2001, has put around $2.5 billion of annual sales at risk. In the US, Gleevec had the largest market share (12.5%) among cancer drugs and posted $4.7 billion in global revenue in 2015.

Novartis expects an impact on sales to the tune of $1 billion due to the ‘genericisation’ of Gleevec. “In 2016, the company expects genericisation of Gleevec to start in February in the US and December in Europe, contributing to the overall expected generic impact of $3.2 billion (against $2.2 billion in 2015) on sales,” Kirch told analysts.

In fact, the company feels the Gleevec episode could cause its revenue and profit for 2016 to stagnate at the previous year’s $49.4 billion level.

Asked about the analysts’ call, Novartis confirmed the information, but denied commenting on its plans to take on competition due to generic launches.

Gleevec, tagged as a wonder drug for cancer patients, costs about $90,000 annually in the US. The generic launched by Sun Pharma would bring the price down to roughly $60,000 for a year’s course. Proliferation of competition is likely to further reduce the prices.
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which is why we are giving 10 billion away in a share repurchase program.
 






2.5 Billion Hit said:
Novartis braces for $2.5-billion hit from Gleevec copies
  • Himani Chandna, New Delhi |
  • Updated: Feb 03, 2016 13:31 IST

An explosion of copycat generics of the blockbuster cancer drug Gleevec is likely to result the Swiss pharma giant, Novartis, taking an impact of as much as $2.5 billion on its annual sales, the company is learnt to have said.

The generic version of Gleevec was launched in the US recently by Sun Pharmaceuticals.

“For Gleevec, we assumed February entry of the first generic. We believe it will be exclusive for the first six months, and our working assumption is there will be multiple entrants after those six months,” Harry Kirsch, chief financial officer at Novartis told analysts in the company’s earnings call last week, according to some analysts who participated in the call.

Sun PharmaPharma’s generic has got 180 days of marketing exclusivity from the US Food and Drug Administration as it was the first to file on the generic. After that, there will be an explosion of copycat Gleevec generics, the company feels.

Natco and Teva pharma have already prepared with their generic Gleevec variants.

The patent expiry of Gleevec, which has been Novartis’ mainstay product since 2001, has put around $2.5 billion of annual sales at risk. In the US, Gleevec had the largest market share (12.5%) among cancer drugs and posted $4.7 billion in global revenue in 2015.

Novartis expects an impact on sales to the tune of $1 billion due to the ‘genericisation’ of Gleevec. “In 2016, the company expects genericisation of Gleevec to start in February in the US and December in Europe, contributing to the overall expected generic impact of $3.2 billion (against $2.2 billion in 2015) on sales,” Kirch told analysts.

In fact, the company feels the Gleevec episode could cause its revenue and profit for 2016 to stagnate at the previous year’s $49.4 billion level.

Asked about the analysts’ call, Novartis confirmed the information, but denied commenting on its plans to take on competition due to generic launches.

Gleevec, tagged as a wonder drug for cancer patients, costs about $90,000 annually in the US. The generic launched by Sun Pharma would bring the price down to roughly $60,000 for a year’s course. Proliferation of competition is likely to further reduce the prices.
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Regardless...still an obscene sum of money to charge...and try to blame it on "the cost of research"!
Shameful....it sickens me, and I need to find some other way to make a living besides being a high paid professional predator and caterer.
Of course, Kool Aide is expensive I guess.
 






settlement 390 mil said:
Novartis shells out $390M to settle specialty pharmacy kickback claims
Novartis ($NVS) agreed to pay about $390 million to wrap up federal kickback claims before the $3.3 billion case went to trial. The Justice Department and a number of U.S. states had sought up to $3.4 billion in damages in the case, which zeroed in on the Swiss drugmaker's relationships with specialty pharmacies.

The settlement, together with other one-time charges, knocked down Novartis' third-quarter net income, which declined to $1.8 billion, a 28% decrease year-over-year in constant currencies.

According to the feds, Novartis offered special deals to pharmacies to boost prescriptions of its transplant drug Myfortic in a head-to-head competition with Roche's ($RHHBY) CellCept. The drugmaker set up another scheme to increase refills of its iron chelation drug Exjade, the government says.

One pharmacy, BioScrip, flipped on Novartis last year, agreeing to pay $15 million and detail its financial relationship with the drugmaker to settle the government's claims about Exjade kickbacks. BioScrip said it pushed patients to get Exjade refills in return for more patient referrals and higher rebates. The case had been set for trial Nov. 2, and the settlement still needs final court approval.

The company says it's not admitting wrongdoing as part of the settlement, and, in fact, continues to use some similar tactics--at least for now--because they're designed to keep patients on their medication regimens.


Novartis CEO Joe Jimenez
"We're not admitting liability, it's something we just believe we want to put behind us," CEO Joe Jimenez said in announcing the settlement.
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Imagine this fucker saying "we are not admitting liability", but will pay the fine in the name of putting things behind. Really, you fucker? We know your MO that is the same for all the Crookes of Bigpharmafia business. During the mafia boss Don Vassella things were the same. Nothing change now and this crook continues to fuck health care systems around the world, for extreme profits. Not method is beyond their criminal organization. Be it legal, be it illegal and be it combination of these two legal and illegal/criminal. They know that by using all these 3 approaches, they can maximize the loot and plunder.
The most effective MO is the combination of the two; Legal and criminal. This is easily done by shrewd insertion of criminal methods into legal ones, thus it is almost unrecognizable which is which, thus not one actually knows they are using the crime to enrich themselves.
When caught like in this case, they ADMIT NOTHING, PAY THE FINE AND MOVE ON TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN...
They will never stop. While fuckers like this one and many before and after him do these things with impunity, pay token fines this will not stop. ONLY if this fucker and all others end up in prison, thrown i with common criminals that they are, they may stop doing it. The best would be to convict them, line them up against the wall and give them option t overdose on their most toxic drug or bullet.
No other way will work. There is hope though, if long suffering american population manages to elect Bernie Sanders, liberate themselves from fuckers like this one and others, we can look forward to justice for all. Otherwise nothing will happen, till we as people had enough, get the guillotines out and do the French revolution again.
Ps; and he even gives us that crook-like smile. Bet the "finger" is also there but was not shown.
 






All wet: Novartis is slammed for ‘alarmist’ ad for heart failure
A television ad by Novartis for heart failure has drawn fire from critics.

By ED SILVERMAN @Pharmalot

FEBRUARY 3, 2016

Novartis may have just handed the many critics of pharmaceutical advertising a gift.

The drug maker is running a promotional campaign, including a 30-second TV spot, designed to raise awareness of heart failure. But the campaign, which features a man blissfully sitting in an easy chair while water quickly fills his living room, is being called “alarmist,” “terrifying” and “shameful” by heart specialists, according to CardioBrief.

The TV ad does have an ominous feel to it. As water rises, a voice warns that “heart failure is always on the rise. Symptoms worsen because your heart isn’t pumping well. About 50 percent of people die within five years of getting diagnosed. But there’s something you can do. Talk to your doctor about heart failure treatment options. Because the more you know, the more likely you are to keep pumping.”

The campaign, however, does not specifically mention Entresto, a Novartis drug that was approved last summer by US regulators to prevent heart failure, which is a common malady that afflicts about 5.1 million Americans. Advertising that discusses an illness without promoting a particular product is known as disease awareness and is a common type of advertising employed by drug makers.

Drug mention or no drug mention, several heart specialists slammed Novartis. As far as they’re concerned, the campaign is an uncalled-for attempt to scare consumers into considering treatment for a condition they may not have.

“This ad really disturbs me. It is alarmist and I am not certain that is a good thing for patients,” Dr. Milton Packer, a Baylor University professor who worked on the key Entresto trial, told CardioBrief. And Dr. Ethan Weiss, a University of California, San Francisco, professor, told the blog that “I think it’s irresponsible to play on the fears of patients in such a brazen and manipulative way. They should be ashamed.”

Similarly, Mary Knudsen, a heart failure patient advocate who has written a book about the illness, also complained that Novartis is going too far. “It’s a terrible ad,” she told the blog. It’s “shameful for a drug manufacturer to try to scare people with active heart failure who are at risk of sudden death, just to try to sell a new product.”

The controversy arises just three months after the American Medical Association called for a ban on direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines. In reaching its decision, the professional society argued that the advertising is designed to generate demand for new and expensive drugs, which may not be necessary.

One marketing expert believes Novartis is making a mistake.

“Scaring consumers is precisely the goal of this and many other disease awareness ads,” said John Mack, who publishes Pharma Marketing News. “Novartis should pull the ad because it is getting some negative feedback from prominent physicians.

“This is not the time to give the AMA more ammunition to use in its campaign to ban all prescription drug DTC advertising. With all the so-called talented ad agencies out there, I’m sure they can come up with a more creative, less scary, and just-as-effective replacement ad.”
 
























By ED SILVERMAN @Pharmalot
FEBRUARY 22, 2016

Novartis South Korea Officed Raided by Authorities over Bribery concerns

In the latest sign that global drug makers remain under scrutiny for their dealings with health care providers, South Korean authorities raided Novartis offices in search of evidence the company provided bribes to local doctors, according to media reports.

The Seoul Western District Prosecutors’ Office confiscated various documents, including account books, in order to determine whether rebates the drug maker offered physicians may have actually been bribes, Yonhap News Agency wrote.

A Novartis spokesman confirmed that its offices in South Korea were visited by local authorities in relation to an investigation, but declined further comment. “The investigation is ongoing and we cannot comment further at this time,” he wrote us.

The probe appears to be at an early stage, but is likely to be closely watched for signs that global drug makers continue to stumble in their practices in various foreign markets.
 






More Novartis Bribery! said:
By ED SILVERMAN @Pharmalot
FEBRUARY 22, 2016

Novartis South Korea Officed Raided by Authorities over Bribery concerns

In the latest sign that global drug makers remain under scrutiny for their dealings with health care providers, South Korean authorities raided Novartis offices in search of evidence the company provided bribes to local doctors, according to media reports.

The Seoul Western District Prosecutors’ Office confiscated various documents, including account books, in order to determine whether rebates the drug maker offered physicians may have actually been bribes, Yonhap News Agency wrote.

A Novartis spokesman confirmed that its offices in South Korea were visited by local authorities in relation to an investigation, but declined further comment. “The investigation is ongoing and we cannot comment further at this time,” he wrote us.

The probe appears to be at an early stage, but is likely to be closely watched for signs that global drug makers continue to stumble in their practices in various foreign markets.
Click to expand...


:oops:
 


















Novartis stops PhIII trial of Genmab's Arzerra after buying rights from GSK
March 10, 2016 | By Nick Paul Taylor

​
Novartis has stopped a Phase III trial of Genmab's Arzerra in pemphigus vulgaris patients. The decision, which comes 7 months after Novartis agreed to buy the rights to Arzerra in autoimmune indications from GlaxoSmithKline, will result in a focusing of attention on the testing of the monoclonal antibody as a treatment for relapsing multiple sclerosis.

For Genmab, the news ends the uncertainty about the future of Arzerra that began when Novartis picked up the rights to the drug in oncology indications as part of its asset swap with GSK. Novartis went some way to clarifying the situation in August when it agreed a $1 billion (€910 million) deal with GSK to acquire the rights to Arzerra in autoimmune indications. Now, the Swiss Big Pharma has gone a step further and provided additional details of its plans for the product, which include a shift in interest away from pemphigus vulgaris and toward the bigger prize of multiple sclerosis.

Stiefel, a GSK subsidiary, started a Phase III trial of Arzerra in pemphigus vulgaris--a rare, potentially life-threatening skin disorder--in 2014. At that time, Arzerra was seen as an alternative to high-dose systemic steroids for the 7 million people worldwide who live with pemphigus vulgaris, but Novartis has decided not to pursue the opportunity. The Phase III trial is being discontinued, a decision that Genmab said has nothing to do with the safety or tolerability of Arzerra. Genmab also revealed there are no plans to develop Arzerra as a treatment for neuromyelitis optica. :eek:
 






Dollars for Doctors

How Industry Money Reaches Physicians

Now There’s Proof: Docs Who Get Company Cash Tend to Prescribe More Brand-Name Meds
The more money doctors receive from drug and medical device companies, the more brand-name drugs they tend to prescribe, a new ProPublica analysis shows. Even a meal can make a difference.

by Charles Ornstein, Ryann Grochowski Jones and Mike Tigas, ProPublica, March 17, 2016, 5 a.m.

The Story So Far
ProPublica is investigating the financial ties between the medical community and the drug and device industry. In October 2010, ProPublica compiled the list of payments that drug companies make to physicians and built a publicly searchable database so that patients could look up their doctors.

This story was co-published with NPR, the Boston Globe and the Tampa Bay Times.

Doctors have long disputed that the payments they receive from pharmaceutical companies have any relationship to how they prescribe drugs.

There’s been little evidence to settle the matter — until now.

Our Database
  • Search through nearly 15 million records to see if your doctor has received money from a drug or device company. Search for your physician.
Use the Data
  • Get the data that powers this investigation. A complete, digital download is available for purchase in the Data Store.

A ProPublica analysis has found for the first time that doctors who receive payments from the medical industry do indeed tend to prescribe drugs differently than their colleagues who don’t. And the more money they receive, on average, the more brand-name medications they prescribe.

We matched records on payments from pharmaceutical and medical device makers in 2014 with corresponding data on doctors’ medication choices in Medicare’s prescription drug program. (You can read our methodology here.)

Doctors who got money from drug and device makers—even just a meal– prescribed a higher percentage of brand-name drugs overall than doctors who didn’t, our analysis showed. Indeed, doctors who received industry payments were two to three times as likely to prescribe brand-name drugs at exceptionally high rates as others in their specialty.

Doctors who received more than $5,000 from companies in 2014 typically had the highest brand-name prescribing percentages. Among internists who received no payments, for example, the average brand-name prescribing rate was about 20 percent, compared to about 30 percent for those who received more than $5,000.
 






Study Shows Efficacy! said:
Dollars for Doctors

How Industry Money Reaches Physicians

Now There’s Proof: Docs Who Get Company Cash Tend to Prescribe More Brand-Name Meds
The more money doctors receive from drug and medical device companies, the more brand-name drugs they tend to prescribe, a new ProPublica analysis shows. Even a meal can make a difference.

by Charles Ornstein, Ryann Grochowski Jones and Mike Tigas, ProPublica, March 17, 2016, 5 a.m.

The Story So Far
ProPublica is investigating the financial ties between the medical community and the drug and device industry. In October 2010, ProPublica compiled the list of payments that drug companies make to physicians and built a publicly searchable database so that patients could look up their doctors.

This story was co-published with NPR, the Boston Globe and the Tampa Bay Times.

Doctors have long disputed that the payments they receive from pharmaceutical companies have any relationship to how they prescribe drugs.

There’s been little evidence to settle the matter — until now.

Our Database
  • Search through nearly 15 million records to see if your doctor has received money from a drug or device company. Search for your physician.
Use the Data
  • Get the data that powers this investigation. A complete, digital download is available for purchase in the Data Store.

A ProPublica analysis has found for the first time that doctors who receive payments from the medical industry do indeed tend to prescribe drugs differently than their colleagues who don’t. And the more money they receive, on average, the more brand-name medications they prescribe.

We matched records on payments from pharmaceutical and medical device makers in 2014 with corresponding data on doctors’ medication choices in Medicare’s prescription drug program. (You can read our methodology here.)

Doctors who got money from drug and device makers—even just a meal– prescribed a higher percentage of brand-name drugs overall than doctors who didn’t, our analysis showed. Indeed, doctors who received industry payments were two to three times as likely to prescribe brand-name drugs at exceptionally high rates as others in their specialty.

Doctors who received more than $5,000 from companies in 2014 typically had the highest brand-name prescribing percentages. Among internists who received no payments, for example, the average brand-name prescribing rate was about 20 percent, compared to about 30 percent for those who received more than $5,000.
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“We know that when patients ask physicians for medicine, the doctor is more likely to switch them from the current therapy” says Mr. Epstein.

Yes, Mr. Epstein. We also know that fear sells well in America. So, why not go "all in" on branding "fear of the heart" to save Entresto ?
Presto !

We should be ashamed for not being novel !
 






Kickbacks For Rare Drug Billing Lands Doc 9-Month Sentence
By Jessica Corso

Chicago (March 11, 2016, 4:10 PM ET) -- A Chicago doctor who was once the nation’s largest prescriber of a rare and dangerous psychiatric drug will spend nine months in jail for accepting kickbacks from Teva Pharmaceuticals and other manufacturers of the drug and passing the costs on to Medicaid, an Illinois federal judge said Friday.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman sentenced Michael Reinstein, 72, to nine months in prison followed by a year of parole and ordered that he hand back the $592,000 in kickbacks disguised as speaking engagement fees.

Reinstein pled guilty to Medicaid fraud and settled a related False Claims Act suit in February 2015. His attorneys had asked that he only receive probation given his advanced age and poor physical condition and the “extraordinary” cooperation he provided to the government over a two year period.

Judge Coleman said spending no time in jail would be unacceptable given the damage he’s done to his “severely and sometimes uncontrollably ill” patients, many of whom will find it difficult to trust a doctor again.

“A lot of these people don’t have the type of support you have,” the judge told Reinstein, gesturing toward his wife, children and other family members who showed up in support of the doctor Friday. She said Reinstein’s own family was “collateral damage” to his scheme following testimony from his wife that she depends on his support as she battles cancer.

The judge did not, however, agree with the government that Reinstein’s behavior deserved a sentence of 18 months. The doctor is battling cancer himself and lost his medical license in 2014, making him unlikely to commit the crime again, the judge noted.

The onetime psychiatrist pled guilty to accepting kickbacks from employees of Ivax Pharmaceuticals and later Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. after it bought Ivax in 2006. Although the money was for speaking engagements, which Reinstein’s lawyers pointed out that he did follow through with, it was also intended to pressure the doctor into prescribing antipsychotic clozapine, prosecutors say.

Prosecutors say the drug is rarely prescribed because of its suppression of white blood cells and the black-box warning on the drug’s packaging. Clozapine is particularly harmful and potentially deadly when used on elderly patients, some of whom depended on Reinstein for support, prosecutors allege.

Reinstein told the judge Friday that although prosecutors identify the areas he worked in as “nursing homes,” they were more akin to halfway houses and most of his patients were young. His attorneys said the doctor had been prescribing clozapine at least three decades before he began receiving money from Ivax.

“It is a serious drug, but it was seriously administered,” defense attorney Terence Campbell of Cotsirilos Tighe Streicker Poulos & Campbell Ltd. said. Campbell said Reinstein was committed to serving patients no other psychiatrist would help, even when they became physically abusive toward him.

Prosecutor Eric Pruitt shot back that Reinstein had been receiving payments from the drug’s brand-name manufacturer before he began billing Medicaid for Teva’s generic clozapine. The brand name manufacturer isn’t named in the government's sentencing memorandum, but theU.S. Food and Drug Administration lists the drug’s distributor as HLS Therapeutics.

The Canadian company purchased Clozaril, the branded version of clozapine, from Novartis AG in 2015, HLS CEO Gilbert Godin told Law360.

Representatives for Novartis and Teva couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Friday.

Prosecutors say Medicare and Medicaid reimbursed Reinstein for fraudulent prescriptions of clozapine over 140,000 times. Last year, the doctor paid $3.79 million to settle a civil suit brought by the government under the False Claims Act.

The government is represented by Eric Pruitt.

Reinstein is represented by Terence Campbell and James Streicker of Cotsirilos Tighe Streicker Poulos & Campbell Ltd.

The case is U.S. v. Reinstein, case number 1:15-cr-00044, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
 






Mar 23, 2016
BRIBERY
Novartis Settles with SEC Over Accounting Failures
Novartis AG agreed to pay about $25 million in a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over accounting and bookkeeping failures relating to illicit payments made in China.

An SEC investigation found that employees of two China-based Novartis subsidiaries gave money, gifts and other things of value to health-care professionals, leading to several million dollars in sales of pharmaceutical products to Chinese state health institutions. Among the gifts, according to an administrative order filed by the SEC, was travel for the health-care professionals and their spouses to a conference in Chicago, along with walking-around money and coverage of strip-club charges on the side.

The company failed to devise and maintain a sufficient system of internal accounting controls and lacked an effective anti-corruption compliance program to detect the payments, and as a result, they weren’t reflected in Novartis’ books and records, the SEC said in a summary of the administrative order. The schemes, which lasted from 2009 to 2013, involved complicit managers within the units, the SEC said.

The SEC’s order found that Novartis violated the internal controls and books-and-records provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Without admitting or denying the findings, Novartis agreed to pay $21.5 million in disgorgement, along with a $2 million civil penalty and $1.5 million in interest. It also agreed to provide the SEC with status reports on implementation of anti-corruption compliance measures.
 






Congrats ! :cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool:

Relator Nets Another $66M Payday In Novartis Kickback Suit
By Bryan Koenig

Washington (March 23, 2016, 11:48 AM ET) -- The former Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp. sales manager who helped reveal the company’s patient referral kickback scheme was awarded $66.4 million for his part in the drugmaker's $390 million settlement of its portion of the False Claims Act case, according to a New York federal court order Tuesday.

The award brings David Kester’s total compensation for his 2011 False Claims Act suit against Novartis to more than $80 million, when combined with his $12.2 million award in late January from specialty pharmacy Accredo Health Group Inc.’s $60 million $ settlement.
 






$80 million $ man said:
Congrats ! :cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool:

Relator Nets Another $66M Payday In Novartis Kickback Suit
By Bryan Koenig

Washington (March 23, 2016, 11:48 AM ET) -- The former Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp. sales manager who helped reveal the company’s patient referral kickback scheme was awarded $66.4 million for his part in the drugmaker's $390 million settlement of its portion of the False Claims Act case, according to a New York federal court order Tuesday.

The award brings David Kester’s total compensation for his 2011 False Claims Act suit against Novartis to more than $80 million, when combined with his $12.2 million award in late January from specialty pharmacy Accredo Health Group Inc.’s $60 million $ settlement.
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nice pay day for the former sales manager.

what's the going rate for former CEO's to turn state's evidence?
 






BOOOOOM ! :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
U.S. Seeks Records of 80,000 Novartis `Sham' Events for Doctors

Edvard Pettersson edpettersson
March 26, 2016 — 1:56 PM EDT
  • Drugmaker says government has `exploded' scope of lawsuit
  • Whistle-blower case claims company wined and dined doctors
The U.S. is asking Novartis AG to provide records of about 80,000 “sham” events in which the government says doctors were wined and dined so they would prescribe the company’s cardiovascular drugs to their patients.

The Swiss drugmaker and the Manhattan U.S. Attorney are engaged in a whistle-blower lawsuit that alleges Novartis provided illegal kickbacks to health-care providers through bogus educational programs at high-end restaurants and sports bars where the drugs were barely discussed.

In a filing Friday, the U.S. said it needs Novartis to provide information to support its allegation that the company defrauded federal health-care programs of hundreds of millions of dollars over a decade by inducing doctors to prescribe its medications through sham speaker events.


“The requested documents go to the core issues in this case: whether educational materials were provided at these events; which doctors actually attended the events; how much money was spent on meals and honoraria; and indeed, most fundamentally, whether the underlying documentation shows that a particular event actually took place,” the government said in its court filing.

‘Exploded’ Case
That filing came in response to a March 22 request by Novartis to the judge, seeking a hearing because the company says the U.S. has “exploded” the size of the case by demanding information about as many as 80,000 promotional events set up by its salespeople.

Representatives of Basel-based Novartis didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail sent Saturday seeking comment on the government’s filing.

Last year Novartis agreed to pay $390 million to settle a lawsuit in which the U.S. government claimed the Swiss company paid kickbacks to pharmacies to boost sales of some of its prescription drugs. The company neither admitted nor denied liability.


The case is U.S. v. Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp., 11-CV-0071, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
 






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