Posted December 19th, 2012.
Fraudulent Promotion of Off-Label Use & Kickbacks for Aranesp Was Centerpiece of Five-Year Federal Investigation & Award
For more information, contact Jamie Moss, newsPRos,201-493-1027, [email protected]
December 19, 2012, Washington, DC — Sanford Heisler, LLP, a leading public interest law firm, today announced a $762 million global qui tam settlement with Amgen, Inc. and the United States Department of Justice. The settlement includes a $612 million civil settlement, a $14 million forfeiture and $136 million in criminal fines.
Headquartered in Thousand Oaks, CA, Amgen is a leading human therapeutics company in the biotechnology industry. The whistleblower (“relator”) who was represented by Sanford Heisler, one of several relators who took part in the Government’s investigation, had been employed as an oncology pharmaceutical sales representative for Amgen from 2002 through 2005. In 2007, the relator filed suit against her former employer in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania under a federal whistleblower statute, the Federal False Claims Act (31 U.S.C. § 3729).
Among other allegations, the complaint focused on Amgen’s off-label marketing campaign and use of illegal kickbacks to promote the sale of Aranesp. The federal investigation confirmed that the company’s tactics caused physicians to use the company’s medications unnecessarily in circumstances where less costly medications or no medication would otherwise have been used. These and other fraudulent practices resulted in increased costs incurred by federal health care programs such as Medicare and Medicaid for the treatment of patients improperly prescribed Aranesp and other Amgen medications.
The legal team at Sanford Heisler, LLP included Lead Counsel David Sanford, Grant Morris and Stefanie Roemer in the firm’s Washington, DC offices and Ross Brooks in the firm’s New York offices.
“This settlement reflects several years of investigative effort, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” said Mr. Sanford, Chairman of Sanford Heisler. “The DOJ and United States Attorney did an outstanding job of validating our allegations. We are pleased with this outcome and believe it will go a long way in preventing Amgen from continuing to violate federal regulations by promoting the off-label use of its powerful drugs and providing medical providers with kickbacks for inappropriately prescribing them. This settlement will also empower pharmaceutical sales representatives to blow the whistle on their employers’ illegal actions.”
About Sanford Heisler, LLP
Sanford Heisler is a public interest law firm with offices in Washington, DC, New York, and San Francisco that specializes in whistleblower, employment discrimination, wage and hour, qui tam and other civil rights matters. The firm has extensive experience in complex class action litigation, having successfully represented thousands of individuals in major class action cases in the United States. The firm also represents select individual clients with a particular emphasis on the representation of executives and lawyers in employment disputes and whistleblowers. In May 2010, the firm won the largest jury award in the U.S. in a gender discrimination employment class action when a jury returned a verdict of $253 million in compensatory and punitive damages against Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation. In 2012, the firm won court approval to settle a wage and hour case on behalf of sales reps employed by Novartis Pharmaceuticals for $99 million. For more information, contact Sanford Heisler at 202-221-4003.