Johnson & Johnson Charged With Kickback Scheme
8 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // January 15th, 2010 // 12:33 pm
The US Attorney in Boston says Johnson & Johnson paid tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks - in the form of special rebates and other payments - so Omnicare, the nation’s biggest provider of pharmacy services to nursing homes, would put more patients on its Risperdal schizophrenia med (the Justice Department statement).
The US Department of Justice, which recently reached a settlement with Omnicare (see here), allege Omnicare pharmacists recommended that nursing home patients with signs of Alzheimer’s disease be given Risperdal. The charge was made in a whistle-blower case brought by a former Omnicare pharmacist (here is the complaint against J&J). By the way, The In Vivo Blog predicted this would happen (look here).
The move comes amid ongoing reports that chronically understaffed nursing homes all too often dispense antipsychotics in order to subdue patients. A recent investigation by the Chicago Tribune, for instance, found that nursing-home residents in Illinois are drugged without their consent or without a legitimate psychiatric diagnosis that would justify treatment.
Anne PME
It seems to me as though a clear cut expiration date that is A. Long enough, B. not too long C. lowers the uncertainty and legal challenges might benefit biopharma by giving the market needed stability.
That being said, it would also seem to me that ramping up production capacity by introducing a pathway for the FDA approval of biosimilars would also likely increase FDA’s and other oversight and enforcement budgets during a time when budgets are already strained.
Also, aside from Genzyme issues and the like, it seems as though there is already enough production of some biotech meds like ESAs. You worry that adding more output may lead to more incentive to over market or even lead to more drug diversion. I also worry that biosimilars will add to outpatient claims costs for additional monitoring and testing and/or lead to increases in med mal premiums. Does the proposal lower drug costs at the expense of increasing other costs, and have these cost increases all been factored in?
Is there another way to lower these drug costs that is simpler to calculate?
Employee 192583
The list of J&J’s sins is getting very long.
http://americanfraud.com/default.aspx
Evelyn Pringle
It never ends. Drugging people for profit from cradle to coffin with seemingly everybody in on the take.
SteveM
That universal Big Pharma M.O. of drugging nursing home residents into zombies with anti-psychotics is really, really ugly.
Woulda coulda, didn’t know
My mom had dementia. She was doing pretty good with it until I took her to the doctor to get some help. He put her on Aricept, later, Execelon was added. I must say, neither of these drugs helped her memory. I learned, too late, they were the cause of her becoming very ill.
She became depressed. All candy and desserts had to be avoided as she developed diabetes. Several times a week she suffered from severe bouts of vomiting and diarrhea. Her children were worried. We didn’t know why mom was so sick, she had always been the picture of health.
A vomiting and diarrhea episode put her in the hospital. There she received a CT scan of the brain “to see if anything serious was going on,” (it was, but not in mom’s head). When we went to see her the next day, I thought she had died. Talking to the nurse I learned the doctor had given her “something” the night before so she wouldn’t get out of bed. It worked. She was comatose for two days. She was given another CT scan (“to make sure nothing serious had happened”). I asked the nurse if the doctor had forgotten he drugged her to the point that she didn’t wake up for two days and wondered how that and being exposed to excessive amounts of radiation were helpful. But all the nurse could tell me was that they needed to be sure my mom was okay.
Although I was my mother’s guardian, no one at the hospital let me know any of this was happening. I know, under her watch, none of her children would have been treated so badly. But that was a different, and better, time in America.
Doc
They should hit J&J with a fine that impacts earnings to stop this madness. Also if internal documents show culpability on individuals, they should be jailed and fined personally.
patrons99
Doc: yes, it has reached the point of madness. Our lawmakers and regulators don’t seem to get it. A lot of it is “below the [public's] radar screen”. But it’s out there. All DOJ has to do is start to seriously look for it. It will require political will for it to ever be cleaned up.
Big Pharma Watch
Terrible! JNJ used to have a good reputation, but they have taken the low road for the last several years. All in the name of greed. Until the government really decideds to hold these companies and their executives accountable, it will continue. The fact that the top execs get away without financial penalty and jail time is disgusting. They abuse people for their own gain. patients get sick and die when they receive dangerous drugs that they don’t need because the Big Pharma companies have pushed their drugs for off-label purposes. They should be treated like “Pushers.”