Plain old Baksheesh –
May 30, 2018 – A Middletown woman who worked as a pharmaceutical sales representative testified in court Wednesday that as a New Jersey sales representative for Insys, an Arizona-based pharmaceutical company, she participated in a scheme in which doctors were paid kickbacks and bribes in exchange for prescribing Subsys, a powerful fentanyl-based opioid painkiller. Michelle Breitenbach, 38, of Middletown, N.J., pleaded guilty today to a second-degree charge of conspiracy to commit commercial bribery. She admitted that doctors, in return for off-label prescribing of Subsys, were paid kickbacks and bribes in the form of purported speaker fees for marketing/education events. Doctors who participated in Insys’ “Speakers Bureau Program” purportedly spoke at events to educate other doctors about Subsys. In reality, the events involved free meals at expensive restaurants, and doctors were paid as speakers even if they did not speak, or if other doctors did not show up to listen, the New Jersey Attorney General charges.
