From the Globe ..Former drug exec pleads guilty to pushing painkiller prescriptions
The painkiller Subsys, shown here in spray form.
A former high-ranking executive of an Arizona-based drug
company pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court in Boston for his role
in a nationwide conspiracy to bribe doctors to unnecessarily prescribe a
fentanyl-based painkiller.
Alec Burlakoff, former vice president of sales of Chandler, Ariz.-based Insys Therapeutics, pleaded guilty to a count of racketeering conspiracy before US District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs.
Those methods included paying doctors to be Insys speakers if they
wrote prescriptions for Subsys, according to prosecutors. The more
prescriptions written for Subsys — and the higher the dose — the more
fees and speaking opportunities were awarded to the clinicians. Alec Burlakoff, former vice president of sales of Chandler, Ariz.-based Insys Therapeutics, pleaded guilty to a count of racketeering conspiracy before US District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs.
By
agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors, he could become a crucial
witness at the trial in January of six former Insys executives accused
of participating in the scheme. They include the company’s billionaire
founder, John Kapoor.
Burlakoff, 44, of West Palm Beach, Fla., and other Insys employees
allegedly used a variety of schemes to bribe physicians and other
medical personnel at pain clinics in different states to prescribe
Subsys. Subsys is a powerful, fentanyl-based pain medication intended to
treat cancer patients suffering intense pain.In other instances, employees in a doctor’s office were moved onto the Insys payroll, as were relatives and girlfriends of medical professionals who wrote a lot of Subsys prescriptions, prosecutors said.
As a result of the conspiracy, prosecutors said, many patients were inappropriately prescribed Subsys, which is highly addictive and dangerous.
The racketeering conspiracy charge carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000.
The US attorney’s office in Boston has for years played an outsized role in the prosecution of health care fraud in the country, even if the companies involved are not based in Massachusetts.
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 3:30 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Interesting no one has commented on this. I think everyone is so appalled at this issue that they feel there is nothing worth saying
you could be rite. I just posted this to let our readers know it's happening. It is pretty big news on the opioid crisis to know that someone at a higher level gets why we are in this dreadful place. Those SOB's knew full well what their drug was doing and what it could mean down the road.
And why is it that no one is going after these drug manufacturers for the cost of treatment for those who end up addicted? One would expect the insurance companies paying these bills would be all over them, and all over the docs prescribing them
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