Tag Archives: whistleblower

Court Ruling Clears Way for Jury Trial in $1 Billion Texas Medicaid Whistleblower Lawsuit

A recent state district court ruling has cleared the way for a jury to hear claims filed by the State of Texas and plaintiff Allen Jones based on allegations that pharmaceutical manufacturer Janssen L.P. used false marketing tactics to convince state officials to spend millions on a schizophrenia drug…The drug was no better and no safer despite being substantially more expensive than older medications that treat the same illness, the lawsuit alleges. Janssen worked to build revenue by actively and purposefully marketing the powerful antipsychotic drug for use in children, the lawsuit says, even though the medication was approved only for the very narrow purpose of treating adult schizophrenia.

Is J&J Cooking Its Books? Suit Alleges Double-Counting at the Pharma Giant

A whistleblower lawsuit filed against Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) didn’t get much attention in the media because the unproven accusations within it — paying kickbacks to nursing home pharmacy Omnicare (OCR) — sounded familiar. But the details in the complaint are worth exploring because they go further than the usual allegations of paying for no-work contracts to boost pharmacy distribution of their drugs.

People & Power—Drug Money

One of the best TV exposés on Big Pharma we’ve seen, “People & Power —Drug Money” produced by Aljazeera. This piece pulls no punches exposing the rampant fraud, fatal drug side effects, off label marketing, criminal practices and “absolutely jaw dropping” payouts Pharma makes to psychiatrists/doctors. Sharon Ormsky, FBI Financial Crimes Unit states, “Pharmaceutical fraud is one of our top three threats — everybody is touched by these frauds in the extent that when you look at the billions of dollars that go into healthcare for the United States, a good percent, 3-10% of that is believed to be siphoned off into fraud—that’s money that could be going to very needy patients.”

Pharmaceutical Industry and Psychiatry—Conjoined Twins Joined at the Wallet, by former Pharma rep turned whistleblower

“Unlimited spending! Schedule all the programs you can.” That was the management directive announced at the regional business meeting I attended when I first became a pharmaceutical rep. When I heard the announcement I felt like I was on an Enron train that was roaring down the tracks, and the company expected everyone to be on board. The company was giving its sales force unlimited funds to hire physicians as paid speakers, sometimes to influence other physicians to prescribe the company’s drugs, at other times to simply financially reward physicians who wrote high volumes of prescriptions every month for the company’s drugs.