Chump Change –
JULY 1, 2020 – Over the years, speaker programs have been a controversial practice in the pharmaceutical industry. Federal prosecutors have alleged the programs are sometimes nothing more than social events, where large honorariums may be paid in the form of kickbacks to speakers and attendees in order to induce them to prescribe different drugs. Novartis, in fact, was accused of running 80,000 “sham” events. “Not only did Novartis incentivize doctors to host these speaking events, reps bribed the doctors to write more prescriptions of the company’s drugs to give Novartis an advantage over competitors within their field,”…
