October 25, 2019

Two foundations that provide pharmaceutical co-payment assistance to patients have reached agreements to resolve claims that they failed to operate independently of their pharmaceutical company donors and violated or caused the violation of the False Claims Act and Anti-Kickback Statute by working with those companies to ensure that donations received from them would be used to cover co-payments for the donor’s drugs, inducing patients to purchase the drugs.  The Chronic Disease Fund, Inc. will pay $2 million, and the Patient Access Network Foundation will pay $4 million, amounts that were arrived at based on the entities’ abilities to pay.  CDF was alleged to have conspired with Novartis, Dendreon, Astellas, Onyx, and Questcor.  PANF was alleged to have conspired with Bayer, Astellas, Dendreon, and Amgen.  The foundations also entered into 3-year corporate integrity agreements.  USAO MA

Tagged in: Anti-Kickback and Stark, FCA Federal, Pharma Fraud,