J&J Accused of Paying Kickbacks to Boost Nursing Home Drug Use

Johnson & Johnson, one of the world’s largest healthcare companies, paid millions of dollars in kickbacks to nursing home pharmacists who agreed to put more of their patients on the company’s schizophrenia drug Risperdal, federal prosecutors said today.

In a complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston as part of a whistle-blower case, prosecutors say the payments came in the form of special rebates or other offers to Omnicare Inc., which supplies most of the prescription drugs to nursing homes, according to the Associated Press.

“Kickbacks in the nursing home pharmacy context are particularly nefarious because they can result in excessive prescribing of strong drugs to patients who have little or no control over the medical care they are receiving,” U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said in a statement. “Nursing home doctors should be able to rely on the integrity of the recommendations they receive from pharmacists, and those recommendations should not be a product of money that a drug company is paying to the pharmacy.”

Prosecutors are seeking damages, restitution, and other penalties against J&J, the AP reports.

Kickback Scheme Ran for 5 Years

According to prosecutors, the kickback scheme ran from 1999 through 2004, during which time J&J’s sales of drugs through Omnicare nearly tripled. The sales increased from about $100 million to more than $280 million, with more than a third of the sales linked to the powerful antipsychotic Risperdal.

“The government’s complaint paints a sordid picture of J&J payola driving sales of drugs in nursing homes,” said Michael Behn, another attorney working on the whistle-blower lawsuit. “Pharmacists are trusted professionals. There can be zero tolerance for kickbacks.”

Pharmacists Followed J&J’s Recommendation

Omnicare agreed to pay $90 million last year to settle its alleged role in the kickback scheme, according to the AP, citing federal prosecutors.

According to the complaint, J&J recommended to nursing home pharmacists which drugs patients should be getting. The pharmacists accepted and followed J&J’s recommendation more than 80 percent of the time, leading the drug company to consider the pharmacists an “extension of (J&J’s) salesforce.”

Two J&J subsidiaries — Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., which makes and sells Risperdal and other drugs, and Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems Inc., which entered into contracts with Omnicare – also are named as defendants in the federal complaint.

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