7 ms·
Biogen agrees to pay $900M to settle drug kickbacks allegations
- notch656a 4y agoHow much of this goes to the victims who were inappropriately prescribed drugs? 90%, 95% 100% ?
- ada1981 4y agoLikely zero. It’s a payday for the violence monopoly. I’m very stoked for this guy though and curious what his cut is and how that is determined. Any ideas?
- alephxyz 4y ago> The United States agrees that Relator shall be awarded a share of $250,000,000 ofthe Federal Settlement Amount paid by Biogen.
- loeg 4y agoWow, I was expecting closer to 10%, which would still have been a ton of money ($84-90M depending on if it's of the Fed cut or total). 28-30% is huge.
- ada1981 4y agoThus isn’t 30%. The Fed gets $250MM, and he gets an unlisted percent of that amount. He’s not getting $250MM. The rest seems to be going to the states.
- loeg 4y agoAre you sure? My read is the states get $50M, the fed gets $840M, and he gets $250M of that 840. > Under the terms of the settlement, Biogen will pay $843,805,187 to the United States and $56,194,813 to 15 states.
- alephxyz 4y agoThat's not correct, have a look at the relator share agreement: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/press-release/file/1538256/download https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/press-release/file/1538256/d...
- ada1981 4y agoOh wow. Ok I stand corrected. Wonder if they will pay.
- westhom 4y agoThat’s an epic reward, even if a large portion goes to legal help. How are there not more whistle blowers in big pharma? Granted, it was 7 years of hard work, but payoff is crazy.
- pGuitar 4y agoAnyone going to jail? Money means nothing if they get charged a fraction of what they made in profits...
- CountSessine 4y agoTheir net income for 2021 was $1058M on about $10B of revenue, so this mostly wipes out 1 year of profits. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- pGuitar 4y agoNot sure how long they have been doing this, but even if it was only one year, the fine is too small.
- dd36 4y agoIt should be profits plus executive compensation. Profits are too easily manipulated.
- colechristensen 4y agoAnd what is the right size?
- weaksauce 4y agoenough so it's not just an expense they can pencil in the books for the next time they do it.
- s1artibartfast 4y agoEverything is an expense no matter what. Even if you were to have prison time or capital punishment, that is just an expense to someone else. E.g. How much for a fall guy
- criddell 4y agoThey should lose patent protection on the drugs involved in the kickback scheme.
- z3c0 4y agoI really take issue with "settlements" of such a scale that don't equate to an admission of guilt. It's essentially buying a get of jail free card. If any individual were facing criminal charges, they would have to plea guilty before any easy-way-out is considered. If it would have taken a billion dollars in legal fees to prove your innocence, I'm going to take a chance and suggest that these claims likely weren't "false".
- hammock 4y agoWhat's more, these "headline" settlement numbers usually go before a judge and get knocked down to 10-30% of what they originally were. The new (final) settlement number rarely makes the headlines
- missedthecue 4y agoThat's only for jury cases where the jury approves some huge number presented by the prosecutor. In this case, Biogen has agreed to pay the sum, as noted in the article.
- advisedwang 4y agoThere's no such thing as guilt in a civil suit though - even if it goes to trial there is no guilt or non-guilt verdict, there's just a balance of evidence. There's still no admission or presumption of guilt at the end of a trial.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- z3c0 4y agoYou're correct, I should have been more clear in my comparison to individuals facing criminal charges. I am critiquing that they get to squash this matter in such a way before the preponderance of evidence can occur to bring proper charges against them, which likely would have occurred if the lawsuit had been allowed to play out. Almost certainly, this settlement will come with some binding arbitration towards the accusants.
- thunky 4y ago> paying kickbacks to physicians to induce them to prescribe Biogen drugs I blame the ones that take the money.
- spaghettiToy 4y ago
- rgrieselhuber 4y ago
- claytongulick 4y agoIt was so bizarre for me to watch this mentality through covid. Like, suddenly there was zero reason to scrutinize the claims made by pharma. The same folks who have been repeatedly held both criminal and civil liability for wrong doing - were suddenly handed a blank check and blanket immunity. And no one is allowed to even suggest that we may want to ask questions or look closer without being called an anti-vaxxer.
- rgrieselhuber 4y agoAnd now we are all supposed to pretend like it never even happened.
- refurb 4y agoI know some people in pharma and Covid was the best thing that ever happened to their reputation. To use a quote from the movie Casino.. “For companies like Pfizer, Covid washes away your sins. It's a morality car wash. It does for us what Lourdes does for humpbacks and cripples.”
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- atestu 4y agoDid physicians go to jail for endangering patients? Lose their license at least? “The Pharmacist” on Netflix really opened my eye to how above the law doctors are.
- Andy_G11 4y agoIt would be great if it was possible to make it easier to assess unscrupulous behaviour by medical professionals and to weed out bad actors whilst simultaneously screening out damaging but unjustified claims about them made by patients or detractors with an axe to grind. I do have concerns about how easy it is for some specialists to create a gravy train for themselves by simply requiring regular 'assessment' visits for patients under their care or observation at what seems to be a ludicrous rate for five minutes of their time. In the UK there is an ombudsman that people can report their concerns to, but what then? - How anonymous is the patient really and how significantly do they compromise their relationship with what is actually a small pool of people who all know each other and are subject to the pressures of their professional clique's members? How can this be improved, because even if they are sure that they are being overcharged and poorly treated there is still an incentive for patients not to go up against the medical establishment? Pricing transparency is one thing which can help, but if there is a departure from the 'expected' level, then what? Is the right thing to do simply for the patient to always assess the rate vs service and report anything which is an outlier without concern for potential downstream consequences from their specialists? Or does pragmatism prevail, even if it perpetuates poor behaviour by the medical professionals?
- from 4y agoThe interesting thing is that what they did wouldn’t even be a crime if the doctors they paid didn’t work with Medicare patients. The anti kickback statute only applies to government funded health insurance programs. These same laws are also why manufacturers can’t offer copay assistance programs to people on Medicare. Applying these laws everywhere could probably reduce waste dramatically. Also there’s a very high ROI and not very often discussed career path: Work in sales at big pharma company or home health care company or really any compare that bills Medicare, find False Claim Act violations and a lawyer to represent you, and collect 15-30% of settlement (should be 8 to 9 figures if you played your cards right).