Big drugmakers aren’t the only ones to get in hot water. Cell Therapeutics has agreed to pay a $10.5 million fine to clear up charges of illegal marketing of its Trisenox cancer drug. The Seattle company promoted docs to write scrips to treat cancers for which Trisenox was never approved, according to the US Department of Justice.

The government alleged that docs who prescribed Trisenox off-label unwittingly submitted false claims for reimbursement to the Medicare program from 2001 until 2005. In 2005, Cell Therapeutics sold Trisenox to another company and the drug’s new owner halted the misleading off-label promotion campaign.

“Cell Therapeutics essentially subverted a regulatory system designed to assure that patients receive only those drugs that have been proven to be effective for their illness,” says Peter D. Keisler, assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Division.

“Cell Therapeutics enriched itself at taxpayer expense by aggressively marketing this drug to doctors for use in treating certain types of cancers even though the company knew that the drug had no proven medical benefit in the treatment of those cancers and had not been approved by the FDA for those uses,” says Jeff Sullivan, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington.

The complaint also alleges the company used illegal kickbacks to induce docs to prescribe Trisenox. Under sham “consulting agreementsm,” docs were paid $500 to $1,000 to attend dinners or conferences on off-label uses. These meetings were held at expensive resorts and restaurants. Doctors who wrote large numbers of prescriptions for Trisenox for off-label uses were asked to speak at various events for additional financial bonuses.

Full Department of Justice statement.