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Press Release

Gilead Agrees To Pay $97 Million To Resolve Alleged False Claims Act Liability For Paying Kickbacks

For Immediate Release
Office of Public Affairs

Pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, Inc. (Gilead), based in Foster City, California, has agreed to pay $97 million to resolve claims that it violated the False Claims Act by illegally using a foundation as a conduit to pay the copays of thousands of Medicare patients taking Gilead’s pulmonary arterial hypertension drug, Letairis, the Justice Department announced today. 

“This settlement demonstrates the government’s commitment to hold accountable companies that pay illegal kickbacks, whether directly or through a third party,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division.  “We will not allow permit pharmaceutical manufacturers to set unaffordable drug prices while circumventing important cost-control mechanisms within the Medicare program.”

“Like its competitors, Actelion and United Therapeutics, Gilead used data from CVC that it knew it should not have, and effectively set up a proprietary fund within CVC to cover the co-pays of just its own drug,” said U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling for the District of Massachusetts.  “Such conduct not only violates the anti-kickback statute, it also undermines the Medicare program’s co-pay structure, which Congress created as a safeguard against inflated drug prices. During the period covered by today’s settlement, Gilead raised the price of Letairis by over seven times the rate of overall inflation in the United States.”

“When pharmaceutical companies deceitfully employ the charitable donation process as an instrument to subsidize copays for their own drugs, it subverts a critical safeguard against the excessive inflation of drug costs,” said Phillip M. Coyne, Special Agent in Charge, Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Service’s Boston Regional Office.  “Manipulation of this process threatens the integrity of our federal healthcare system, disregarding the American taxpayer who ultimately bears the cost.  As such, we remain vigilantly focused on confronting this type of conduct and will continue our aggressive enforcement in this area.”

“Health care fraud costs our country tens of billions of dollars each year because of unscrupulous schemes like the one Gilead orchestrated that dangled kickbacks disguised as copay assistance in front of Medicare patients,”  said Joseph R. Bonavolonta, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Boston Division.  “Today’s $97 million settlement ensures Gilead pays for defrauding a government insurance program and reaffirms the FBI’s resolve to pursue investigations and exhaust all efforts to uncover these schemes.”

When a Medicare beneficiary obtains a prescription drug covered by Medicare, the beneficiary may be required to make a partial payment, which may take the form of a copayment, coinsurance, or a deductible (collectively “copays”).  Congress included copay requirements in the Medicare program, in part, to serve as a check on health care costs, including the prices that pharmaceutical manufacturers can demand for their drugs. 

Under the Anti-Kickback Statute, a pharmaceutical company is prohibited from offering or paying, directly or indirectly, any remuneration — which includes money or any other thing of value — to induce Medicare patients to purchase the company’s drugs.  This prohibition extends to the payment of patients’ copay obligations. 

Gilead sells Letairis, which is approved for treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension.  The government alleged that Gilead used a foundation, which claims 501(c)(3) status for tax purposes, as a conduit to pay the copay obligations of thousands of Medicare patients taking Letairis and to induce those patients to purchase Letairis, because it knew that the prices Gilead set for Letairis could otherwise pose a barrier to those purchases.  From 2007 through 2010, Gilead made payments to the foundation, which, in turn, used those funds to pay copays of patients prescribed Letairis.  The government alleged that Gilead routinely obtained data from the foundation detailing how much the foundation had spent for patients on Letairis; it then used this information to decide how much to pay to the foundation and to confirm that its payments were sufficient to cover the copays of only patients taking Letairis.  The government also alleged that, to generate revenue from Medicare and induce purchases of Letairis, Gilead referred Medicare patients to the foundation, which resulted in claims to Medicare to cover the cost of Letairis.   

The government’s resolution of this matter illustrates the government’s emphasis on combating healthcare fraud.  One of the most powerful tools in this effort is the False Claims Act.  Tips and complaints from all sources about potential fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement, can be reported to the Department of Health and Human Services at 800-HHS-TIPS (800-447-8477).

The investigation was conducted by the Civil Division’s Commercial Litigation Branch and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, in conjunction with the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

The claims resolved by the settlement are allegations only; there has been no determination of liability. 

Updated September 23, 2020

Topic
False Claims Act
Press Release Number: 20-989