US: Novartis a 'repeat' kickback offender
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
Just three years after agreeing to pay $422.5 million to settle fraud charges involving kickbacks, Novartis was accused by US federal prosecutors this week of "using the lure of kickbacks disguised as rebates" to convince pharmacists to switch thousands of kidney transplant patients to the Swiss firm's antirejection medicine Myfortic (mycophenotic acid) from Roche's CellCept (mycophenolate mofetil) or the much cheaper generic forms of both drugs.