Scheme

A new lawsuit claims CEO of Sanofi and other executives conducted a scheme to funnel tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks and other incentives to get the company's diabetes drugs prescribed and sold.

The whistleblower lawsuit also claims Sanofi CEO Christopher Viehbacher was fired by the company's board "in part, because he was involved in the aforesaid illegal and/or fraudulent activity," which allegedly went on "over the course of many years."

The suit says that Sanofi used contracts that appeared to be for legitimate purposes to direct money to hospitals, doctors and retail pharmacy chains to induce them to purchase and prescribe Sanofi's diabetes medication. It also claims that "approximately $1 billion is missing from Defendant Sanofi which has not been accounted for."

This come two years after the drug company reached an agreement with the Justice Department to settle claims that it engaged in kickbacks by giving doctors free samples of an arthritis drug as a way to encourage them to buy and prescribe that medication.
It impacts federal Medicare and Medicaid insurance programs, the tax payer wallet,
[CNBC-Dan Mangan]

Just a thought.