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NOVARTIS

US accuses Novartis of paying kickbacks to MDs

The US Justice Department on Friday accused Basel-based pharmaceuticals giant Novartis of paying kickbacks to doctors to prescribe the company's drugs over rival products.

In the second US lawsuit against the Swiss firm this week, the Justice Department said its US unit Novartis Pharmaceuticals had boosted sales of its more expensive brand-name drugs by offering incentives to prescribing doctors that were ultimately paid for by public health-care programs.
   
The lawsuit, filed in the US district court in New York, alleged that, to 
promote Novartis drugs like Lotrel and Valturna, used for hypertension, and Starlix, for diabetes, the company paid doctors to make speeches at what were only "social occasions" and put on lavish dinners for the doctors.
   
The payoffs involved "thousands" of speaker programs in which the doctors 
"spent little or no time discussing the drug at issue."
   
"Instead, Novartis simply wined and dined the doctors at high-end 
restaurants with astronomical costs, as well as in sports bars, on fishing trips, and at other venues not conducive to an educational program," the suit said.
   
Such actions "were, in reality, kickbacks to the speakers and attendees to 
induce them to write prescriptions for Novartis drugs," the department said.
   
The payments violated the US Anti-Kickback Statute and led to the 
government paying "false claims" via its health-care programs for Novartis drugs.
   
On Tuesday the government filed suit against Novartis for paying kickbacks 
to pharmacies to substitute its drug Myfortic for cheaper generic drugs used to help transplant patients.
   
The payments to the pharmacies amounted to tens of millions of dollars, and 
took Myfortic sales in those pharmacies to $100 million, with nearly half that paid by the government's Medicare and Medicaid schemes, the suit said.
   
In a statement, Novartis disputed the claims of both cases, and said the 
government was expanding the definition of "kickback" beyond the law.
   
"Discounts and rebates by pharmaceutical companies are a customary, 
appropriate and legal practice as recognized by the government itself."
   
The government's stance, Novartis said, "threatens to undermine 
pharmaceutical company discounting practices that benefit both consumers and payers, including the government."
   
In addition, it said, "physician speaker programs are an accepted and 
customary practice in the industry."

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NOVARTIS

Switzerland’s Novartis to help make Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine

Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Novartis said Friday it had signed an initial agreement to help produce the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against Covid-19, as countries scramble to boost supplies.

Switzerland's Novartis to help make Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine
Novartis will help manufacture Pfizer vaccine. Photo by AFP.

The rare act of cooperation — in an industry usually marked by cut-throat competition — comes after French pharma group Sanofi announced earlier this week that it would also team up with rivals Pfizer and BioNTech to help produce 125 million doses of their jab.

The two-dose vaccine, which is based on mRNA technology, has been shown to be around 95 percent effective and has been approved for use by the World Health Organization and in some 50 countries.

But it is in limited supply as nations around the world race to immunise their populations against the coronavirus, which has killed nearly 2.2 million people in just over a year.

Novartis said in a statement that it would use its sterilised manufacturing facilities at its site in Stein, Switzerland to help produce the Pfizer-BioNTech jabs.

Under the agreement, the company said it would “take bulk mRNA active ingredient from BioNTech and fill this into vials under aseptic conditions for shipment back to BioNTech for their distribution to healthcare system customers around the world”.

Once a final agreement is reached, Novartis said it expected to begin production in the second quarter of the year, with initial shipment of finished product expected in the third quarter.

Steffen Lang, Head of Novartis Technical Operations, stressed that the company was “committed to leverage our manufacturing capabilities to help support the supply of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics around the world”.

“We expect this to be the first of a number of such agreements,” he said in the statement.

Novartis said it was already in “advanced discussions” with a number of other companies about with other production tasks, including of mRNA, therapeutic protein and raw material production for Covid vaccines and therapeutics. 

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