Pfizer to pay $59.7 million over kickbacks for migraine drug

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By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Pfizer will pay $59.7 million to resolve charges that a company it acquired defrauded Medicare and other healthcare programs by paying kickbacks so doctors would prescribe the migraine drug Nurtec ODT, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Friday.

The Justice Department said that from March 1, 2020, to Sept. 30, 2022, Biohaven Pharmaceuticals violated the federal False Claims Act by providing speaker honoraria and meals at high-end restaurants to doctors, to induce them to prescribe Nurtec more often.

According to the government, some speaker programs were attended multiple times by the same doctors, resulting in no educational benefit, or attended by doctors’ spouses, family members and colleagues who had no educational need to be there.

Pfizer ended the Nurtec speaker programs after paying $11.5 billion to buy Biohaven in October 2022.

“Patients deserve to know that their doctor is prescribing medications based on their doctor’s medical judgment, and not as a result of financial incentives from pharmaceutical companies,” said Trini Ross, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York.

Pfizer did not admit wrongdoing in agreeing to settle.

“We are pleased to put this legacy matter behind us, so that we can continue to focus on the needs of patients,” the New York-based drugmaker said in a statement.

The settlement resolves an August 2021 lawsuit filed in the Rochester, New York federal court by Patricia Frattasio, a former Biohaven neuroscience sales specialist.

She will receive about $8.4 million from the settlement. About $41.8 million will go to the federal government and $9.5 million will go to state Medicaid programs.

The False Claims Act lets whistleblowers sue on behalf of the government, and share in recoveries.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)