Sanofi Agrees To Pay $109 Million To Resolve Kickback Allegations

Two subsidiaries of France-based drug manufacturer Sanofi, Sanofi-Aventis, Inc. and Sanofi-Aventis, LLC, agreed to pay $109 million to the U.S. to resolve allegations that it violated the federal False Claims Act by providing units of its knee injection, Hyalgan, to physicians for free in order to induce them to buy and prescribe Hyalgan in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute.  Specifically, Sanofi sales representatives were trained to market the value of the free samples to physicians.  Sales representatives also made illegal kickback arrangements with physicians, in which they would provide a negotiated number of free samples in exchange for a specific purchase volume. Additionally, the settlement resolves allegations that Sanofi violated the False Claims Act by submitting false Average Sales Price (ASP) reports to the U.S. for Hyalgan which failed to account for the free units provided to physicians.   The allegations arose from a qui tam lawsuit filed under the federal False Claims by former sales representative Mark Giddarie.  As his share of the recovery, Giddarie will receive $18.5 million.

For more information, please see:
www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/December/12-civ-1526.html