AI & Machine Learning in Biotechnology
STAT+: Drug company penalties for paying kickbacks to doctors failed to dent bottom lines, analysis finds
Pharmaceutical companies that were penalized for kickbacks paid only 2.2% of their U.S. revenue generated by selling drugs that were the focus of the alleged violations during the past quarter century, according to a new analysis.
Between 2000 and 2025, 64 cases were identified in which a drugmaker reached a civil or criminal settlement with the U.S. government for paying kickbacks to physicians to boost prescribing of their medicines or that caused federal government health care programs, such as Medicare or Medicaid, to overpay for medicines.
Of those, complete information regarding the circumstances as well as sales data was available for 46 cases. The analysis, which was published in JAMA Network Open, found that these yielded nearly $10.25 billion in penalties, while the U.S. revenue generated by the medicines that were at the center of those settlements totaled $458.6 billion.
Pharmaceutical companies that were penalized for kickbacks paid only 2.2% of their U.S. revenue generated by selling drugs that were the focus of the alleged violations during the past quarter century, according to a new analysis.
Between 2000 and 2025, 64 cases were identified in which a drugmaker reached a civil or criminal settlement with the U.S. government for paying kickbacks to physicians to boost prescribing of their medicines or that caused federal government health care programs, such as Medicare or Medicaid, to overpay for medicines.
Of those, complete information regarding the circumstances as well as sales data was available for 46 cases. The analysis, which was published in JAMA Network Open, found that these yielded nearly $10.25 billion in penalties, while the U.S. revenue generated by the medicines that were at the center of those settlements totaled $458.6 billion.